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Muller, Andreas Karl Ewald

The public voices of Daniel Defoe

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Muller, Andreas Karl Ewald (2005) The public voices of Daniel Defoe. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield.

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http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ The Public Voices of Daniel Defoe

by

Andreas Karl Ewald Müller

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

University of Huddersfield

March 2005 Contents

Page

Acknowledgements i

Note on text i

Abstract ii

Abbreviations iii

Introduction 1

`Exchanging for Chapter I one Tyrant Three hundred' - Defoe 22 and the Standing Army Controversy, 1697-99'

Chapter II `Old Britannia's Youthful Days': The True Born 70 Englishman and Country Whig Historiography'

Chapter III `The Scepter of our Minds': Religious Dissent and 104 Jure Divino'

Chapter IV `That his Conduct might be rectified': Jacobitism, 153 Social Unrest and The Family Instructor'

Chapter V `One would have thought this had been an Irony': 202 The Whig Schism, Toland and Defoe'

Conclusion 235

Bibliography 242 Acknowledgements

There are many people and organisations who through their help, advice and criticism have enabled me to complete this thesis.

Many thanks to:

My supervisors Dr Philip Woodfine and Dr Glynis Ridley for their support, advice and criticism. Without their faith in my academic ability, this thesis might not have seen the light of day. The University of Huddersfield for the invaluable financial assistance it provided with a bursary. The Queen's University of Belfast and the University of Louisville for allowing Dr Ridley to continue the supervision of my thesis. My colleagues in the Department of Humanities, University College Worcester, for their moral support and academic advice (special thanks to Dr Mehreen Mirza). Staff within Huddersfield University library for obtaining photocopies of even the most obscure pamphlets. Staff within the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, and the University Library, Birmingham, for their knowledgeable assistance.

Particular thanks must go to my parents, Rudi and Karola Müller, for their financial and emotional support throughout my time as an undergraduate and postgraduate student. This dissertation is dedicated to them.

Finally, but not last, thanks to my wife Tina and my son Ethan, who have put up with a whole range of Ph.D. induced mood swings, financial restrictions and hours of neglect.

Note on Text

Unless otherwise noted, the place of publication for primary sources is London. I have reproduced as faithfully as possible contemporary spelling and punctuation, but have used the intrusive [sic] as little as possible. I ask the reader to take on trust the fact that all vagaries of spelling are there in the original.

Dates are given in the old style throughout but I have taken the year to begin on I January. Abstract

This is a study of Daniel Defoe's political rhetoric and polemical strategies between the years 1697 and 1717. It explores and analyses a representative selection of what may be termed Defoe's `public voices'. In its broadest definition, these public voices are understood to be the opinions expressed and the rhetorical stances taken by

Defoe in those pieces of his writing which directly or indirectly relate to the sphere of official, governmental and national discourse and activity. In the most basic sense, this thesis attempts to highlight and explain the way in which the language, imagery and concerns of Defoe's publications were shaped by the events and attitudes of the historical moment at which they were produced. In the process, this study re-situates, and thus necessarily re-evaluates, the voices and apparent meanings of some of Defoe's better known texts, while offering extensive investigations of the rhetorical strategies of publications which have previously been neglected by Defoe scholars.

In the context of the above, an attempt is made to demonstratethat the poem The True-Born Englishman (1701) was not only a response to xenophobic sentiments prevalent in English society at the turn of the century but did, in fact, represent

Defoe's final, summative contribution to the standing army controversy of the late

1690s. On a similar note, this thesis aims to show that the verse satire Jure Divino

(1706) was the culmination of Defoe's involvement in the occasional conformity controversy of the early 1700s and constituted on important element of his campaign in favour of religious toleration. In addition, I argue that volume one of The Family

Instructor (1715) was Defoe's response to the Jacobite-inspired unrest of the years

1714-15 and, as such, represented an important political act. Finally, this study offers

an extensive investigation of one of Defoe's most problematic publications, An

Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Tnobling Foreigners, Is a

Treasonable Conspiracy (1717). The pamphlet, I suggest, represented a highly ironic

attack on one of Defoe's old adversaries, John Toland, and only develops its full

rhetorical force if read in the context of the standing army controversy.

11 Abbreviations

Backscheider Paula R. Backscheider, Daniel Defoe: His Life (Baltimore & London, 1989)

Critical P.N. Furbank and W. R Owens, A Critical Bibliography of Bibliography Daniel Defoe (London, 1998)

Dickinson H. T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property. Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1977)

Hatton Ragnhild Hatton, George I, Elector and King (New edition: New Haven & London, 2001)

Harris Tim Harris, Politics under the later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society 1660-1715 (London & New York, 1993) Holmes Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (revised ed., London & Ronceverte, 1987) Horwitz Henry Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics in the reign of William III (Manchester, 1977) Novak Maximillian E. Novak, Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions (Oxford, 2001)

Political & W. R. Owens & F.N. Furbank (eds) Political and Economic Economic Writings Writings of Daniel Defoe, Vols. 1-8 (London, 2000) Rose Craig Rose, England in the 1690s: Revolution, Religion and War (Malden, Mass. & Oxford, 1999)

Satire W. R. Owens & F. N. Furbank (eds), Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural, Vols. 1-8 (London, 2003-4)

111 Introduction This is a study of Daniel Defoe's political rhetoric and polemical strategies between the years 1697 and 1717. It explores and analyses a representative selection of what may be termed Defoe's `public voices'. In its broadest definition, these public voices are understood to be the opinions expressed and the rhetorical stances taken by

Defoe in those pieces of his writing which directly or indirectly relate to the sphere of official, governmental and national discourse and activity. In the most basic sense, this thesis attempts to highlight and explain the way in which the language, imagery and concerns of Defoe's publications were shaped by the events and attitudes of the historical moment at which they were produced. In the process, this study re-situates, and thus necessarily re-evaluates, the voices and apparent meanings of some of

Defoe's better known texts, while offering extensive investigations of the rhetorical strategies of publications which have previously been neglected by Defoe scholars.

The origins of this thesis may be found in a notion voiced by Geoffrey Holmes, namely that `in the language of early-eighteenth-century politics are to be found some 1 of the most valuable clues to its character. ' Holmes' foregrounding of language offers the point of departure for the individual discussions contained in this study and it is with this emphasis in mind that Defoe's rhetorical and polemical practices are examined in order to offer an insight into the character of his political writings.

Moreover, the general importance Holmes attaches to the manner in which politicians and commentators spoke and wrote about political issues and events is echoed in

Defoe's own development as a writer. From a young age, the concept of manipulating language to achieve a specific rhetorical effect represented a dominant aspect of

Defoe's Weltanschauung. One of the main features of the non-conformist education he received at Charles Morton's Newington Green Academy was a focus on the classical humanist practice of conducting debates by considering at least two divergent points of view on a particular topic. A passage in one of Defoe's late pieces describes how Morton's pupils were actively encouraged to develop the ability to

Holmes, 13

2 articulate a range of public voices, providing them with `early practice in the 2 assumption of authorial masks' and convincingly relating entirely fabricated stories: [Morton] had a class for eloquence, and his pupils declaim'd weekly in the English tongue, made orations, and wrot [sic] epistles twice every week upon such subjects as he prescrib'd to them or upon such as they themselves chose to write upon. Sometimes they were ambassadors and agents abroad at foreign Courts, and wrote accounts of their negotiacions and recepcion [sic] in foreign Courts directed to the Secretary of State and some times to the Soveraign himself. Sometimes they were Ministers of State, Secretaries of Commissioners at home, and wrote orders and instructions to the ministers abroad, as by order of the King in Council 3 and the like.

The technique of considering a variety of viewpoints, taking a stand, and developing a consequential argument was, of course, a standard rhetorical element of the Medieval 4 Trivium and as such it was firmly rooted in Western educational methods. Moreover, the seventeenth-century practice of the `sceptical' method of argument, which involved establishing a paradoxical position through using a mask or persona, was still very popular and lent itself well to polemical and current affairs journalism. Collections such as Poems on the Affairs of State (1695), for example, drew 5 extensively on the technique. That Defoe regarded the creation of different authorial masks as an effective rhetorical tool is evident from the regularity with which he used this strategy. During the period covered by this study, one may find him assuming the roles of a humble `Plebeii', a `Free-Holder', a Jacobite or a Quaker, to cite just a few 6 examples.

It is also worthwhile to highlight that Defoe acknowledged the significance of having received his education in rhetoric in `the English tongue'. When the young

Defoe entered higher education at Morton's academy in the 1670s, the official

2 E. Anthony James, Daniel Defoe'sMany Voices. A Rhetorical Study ofProse Style and Literary Method (Amsterdam, 1972), 21 3 Daniel Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman, Karl Bülbring (ed), (London, 1890), 219 4 Backscheider,15-18 5 Novak, 177 6 The pamphlets referred to here are The Poor Man's Plea (1698), The Free-Holders Plea against Stock-Jobbing Elections of Parliament Men (1701), Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover (1713) and A Seasonable Expostulation with, and Friendly Reproof unto James Butler (1715).

3 language of instruction in the universities was still Latin. Morton, however, defied this tradition and delivered all subjects in the vernacular to ensure, as J.R. Moore has commented, that `his pupils could live in the world around them and could converse ' with mankind'. Defoe himself described instruction in English as a distinct advantage for the development of one's public voices: those who had substituted their native language with Latin, he asserted, had `no style, no diction, no beauty in delivering themselves, that `twould be a shame to hear one of them declaim in English'. 8 During his formative years at the academy, Defoe was thus not merely taught to use language in a highly instrumental fashion and to shape his rhetoric according to the specific nature of the argument, but he learnt to do so in his native language, or, to put this somewhat more polemically, in the "language of the people". His `first conscious training as a writer' was therefore not limited to the address of an elite audiences but conducted with a view to making an immediate impact on the opinions of a wide 9 range of listeners and readers. Defoe clearly valued this element of his education and with some obvious pride he claimed that Morton's pupils `came out of his hands finish'd orators, fitted to speak in the highest presence, to the greatest assem[b]lies, and even in Parliament, Courts of Justice, or any where; severall of them came afterwards to speak in all those places and capacityes with great applause'. 1° While

Defoe never spoke in the greatest assemblies, his future career would indeed require him to use his public voices almost `any where' else.

The notion of a public voice presupposesthat a public forum existed for its expression. The most influential recent model for this forum is the one offered by

Jürgen Habermas in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. According to Habermas, a bourgeois public sphere in which `private people come together as a public' was engendered by three events of the years 1694-95.11Firstly, he claims, the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 `signalled a new stage in the development of capitalism'. This new private

J.R- Moore, Daniel Defoe. Citizen of the Modern World (Chicago, 1958), 36 8 Defoe, Compleat English Gentleman, 199 9 Novak, 42 10 Defoe, Compleat English Gentleman, 220 " Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. T. Burger (Cambridge, Mass.: 1992), 27,58

4 joint-stock company, supported by the ministry and lending money to the crown, investment represented a safe opportunity to the London mercantile elite, thus

consolidating the growth of the politically independent `bourgeois strata of the Protestant middle class' which became `engaged in rational-critical debate'. 12 The initial forum for debate this were the `centers of criticism', the coffeehouses, which had their `golden age between 1680 and 1730'. It was in these establishments,

Habermas asserts, where `a certain parity' between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie

began to emerge. The coffeehouse thus provided the arena for critical discussions between the nobility and a broad stratum of the middle-class, which now extended to craftsmen and shopkeepers, concerning topics such as literature, art, economics and 13 Politics. The second of Habermas's significant events is the expiry in 1695 of the

Printing or Licensing Act of 1662, which freed the British press from pre-publication censorship. The lapse of the act gave the press `unique liberties', which made it possible for the rational-critical coffeehouse debates to be transferred into print and, importantly, which allowed more extensive public scrutiny of political decisions.

Newspapers, journals and pamphlets encouraged the discussion of news and opinions not only in `clubs and coffee houses' but also `at home and in the streets'. It was in the press where public authority was `called before the forum of the public' and 14 scrutinised by the literate. Thirdly, Habermas contends that William III's introduction of the `first cabinet government' marked the beginning of the

`parliamentiarization of state authority that led ultimately to the point at which the in public active the political realm established itself as an organ of the state'. This process, moreover, was aided by the fact that, in their effort to undermine ministerial began policies, opposition politicians to `seek refuge in the public sphere and appeal judgement '5 to the of the public'. In other words, the bourgeois middle class was now able to influence directly the sphere of official politics.

12 Ibid, 62; for information on the establishment of the Bank of England see Rose, 133- 35. 13 Ibid, 32-33 14 Ibid, 58-60 15 ]bid, 58,63

5 Habermas's theory of the emergence of a public sphere at the end of the seventeenth century has been widely criticised. Several scholars have highlighted that he `gravely postdated the arrival of the public sphere', offering a wealth of evidence which suggests that popular political opinion and debate did, in fact, emerge during 16 the 1640s. Thus, it was during the hectic years of the English Civil Wars that acquiring domestic news on a daily basis became `a habit for a sizeable share of the

English population', a habit which was rapidly exploited by authors and booksellers '7 alike. An important development which emerged from the explosion of publications in the 1640s was that of a partisan press. For the first time, newspapers espoused opposing political causes, publicly fighting out their differences of opinion with a hitherto unknown lack of restraint. Partisanship, writers and booksellers quickly " realised, sold `better than impartiality'. Therefore, by the 1690s, the attempt to influence public opinion had already been established as a feature of the English press. More recently, J.A. Downie has highlighted a number of further weaknesses in Habermas's theory of the bourgeois public sphere. In addition to questioning

Habermas's chronology concerning the emergence of rational-critical debate in print,

Downie points out that the linking of the Bank of England with a change in the mode of production `antedates the arrival of the "industrial revolution" (if there was one) by ' up to a century, and is palpable nonsense'. The period in question was, in fact, dominated not by the mercantile bourgeoisie but by the aristocracy. Moreover, as the strict exclusivity of gentlemen's clubs demonstrated, the public sphere, in particular its spatial manifestation, the coffeehouse, was not characterised by a complete elision

16 Joad Raymond, `The Newspaper, Public Opinion, and the Public Sphere in the Seventeenth Century, ' in J. Raymond (ed. ), News, Newspapers, and Society in Early Modern Britain (London & Portland, 1999), 114,117. See also Steve Pincus, "'Coffee Politicians Does Create": Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture, ' Journal ofModern History 67: 4 (1995), 807-34 and C. John Sommerville, The News Revolution in England: Cultural Dynamics of Daily Information (Oxford & New York, 1996). 17 Ibid, 34-45; Jeremy Black, The English Press in the Eighteenth Century (London & Sydney, 1987), 5 18 Sommerville, News Revolution, 36 19 J.A. Downie, `Public and Private: The Myth of the Bourgeois Public Sphere,' in Cynthia Wall (ed), A Concise Companion to the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Malden, Mass. & Oxford, 2005), 75

6 of social distinction and universal accessibility. 20 In addition, Downie highlights that

Habermas's contention that William III introduced a new style of cabinet government is misleading, since the king inherited the structures established by his predecessor,

James II. He also draws attention to the fact that `state control of the press did not cease with the expiry of the licensing system', since government intervention such as the imprisonment, and even capital punishment, of authors and publishers occurred well into the eighteenth century. Habermas's paradigm of the bourgeois public sphere, `did Downie concludes, not - and could not - exist in Great Britain at the turn of the eighteenth century in the terms in which it was conceived 3.2'

In one sense, the issue of whether or not a Habermasian public sphere which encompassed a wide range of social groups actually existed is of no great consequence to a study on Defoe's public voices. Defoe, unlike Habermas, regarded critical debate and opinion as restricted to the privilege of the propertied classes. What emerges from Defoe's discussions of the concepts of political power and suffrage is the idea that the `people' did not include every single inhabitant of the nation. Only those who owned a part of the country had a natural interest in, and indeed right to determine, its government:

I do not place this Right [to chose a government] upon the Inhabitants, but upon the Freeholders; the Freeholders are the proper Owners of the Country: It is their own, and other Inhabitants are but Sojourners, like Lodgers in a House, and ought to be subject to such Laws as the Freeholders impose upon them, or else they must remove"

Defoe's division of the people into freeholders and tenants strongly echoed the

Harringtonian tradition of circumscribing political society by distinguishing between

`freemen' and `servants' (a discussion of this concept is offered in Chapter I).

Importantly, this distinction denied the unpropertied a political voice and thus effectively excluded them from the political process. As a consequence, a large

20 Ibid, 65,72 21 Ibid, 60-61,68-71,74 22 Daniel Defoe, The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England, Examined and Asserted (1702), in Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 1,121

7 section of English society had no part in Defoe's public sphere and played no decisive role in the rational-critical debate of political matters. 23

A more important issue for a thesis on Defoe's political rhetoric is that, in spite of the apparent weaknesses of Habermas's idea of a bourgeois public sphere, there was a public sphere in which opinions were debated publicly by those whom Defoe considered to have a political voice. Both traditional victualling houses and the more recent phenomenon of coffeehouses offered a social space in which news and opinions were exchanged and discussed by a clientele which either enjoyed political power itself or who had access to politicians. For centuries, taverns, inns and alehouses had acted as `the centre point of a galaxy of commercial, governmental and 24 leisure activities'. From their beginnings, taverns and inns catered `mainly for the more prosperous members of society', usually the upper and middling ranks, while the circle of customers of alehouses did not become `respectable' and more gentrified 25 until after the Restoration. It might also be remarked that by the late seventeenth century the public nature of these establishment began to be consciously acknowledged in a new generic name: the term `public house' was applied increasingly to all three types of victualling houses.26

Many of the taverns and alehouses were well furnished and had an imposing physical appearance: London establishments, for example, tended to be of a considerable size, commonly boasting ten rooms or more. Moreover, the fact that they had spacious, individual drinking rooms and partitions between seating booths made them a favourite meeting place for political, literary and other shared-interest gentlemen's clubs; perhaps somewhat paradoxically, clients could thus enjoy some privacy in a public place and voice potentially subversive sentiments without the threat of legal consequences. One such club was the `Calves-Head fraternity', which

23 Defoe reiterated this notion again in Book V of Jure Divino (1706). Downie makes a similar point with regard to the radical Whigs Toland and Trenchard and Gordon. See `Public and Private', 62-63. 24 Peter Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200-1830 (London & New York, 1983), 14. Clark highlights that these terms were sometimes used interchangeably to describe victualling houses (5). 25 Ibid, 9,11,15,225 26 Ibid, 11-12,195,197

8 be will considered in the first chapter of this thesis. During the 1690s, this group of radical Whigs regularly met at the Calves-Head tavern in order to debate their republican schemes and contemporary political events. Significantly, the voices and discussions opinions of these did not remain within the walls of the tavern, as, according to a contemporary observer, the club met `almost in a publick manner, and 27 apprehended nothing'. Moreover, the narrative of one of the most important publications of the so-called standing army controversy of 1697-99, Ludlow's

Memoirs, was shaped by the Calves-Head debates. One of the club's attendees, John

Toland, heavily edited the text to reflect the political sentiments voiced during the meetings. The perhaps most obvious link between the tavern debates and the official sphere of parliamentary politics was provided by the `close literary partnership'

Toland struck up with Lord Ashley, third Earl of Shaftsbury and Member of Parliament. 28

From the 1650s onwards, the public houses faced competition from the fashionable flurry of coffeehouses which were being established in London and in several other towns. Like taverns, they offered a public platform for debates on politics, religion, and culture but had the advantage that they sold a comparatively cheap beverage in coffee. Within the walls of the coffeehouse, as Steve Pincus has stated, `each political move that was made, and some that were not, was revealed, 29 debated, celebrated, and vilified'. Indeed, the coffeehouses soon became associated specifically with political debate: `So politically au courant, so ideologically up-to- date, so accurate a gauge of public opinion were the coffeehouses that they were the places that politicians and journalists went to collect news and opinions. '30 The

27 Cited in J. Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture, 1696-1722 (Manchester, 2003), 95 28 Blair Worden, `Introduction, ' Edmund Ludlow: A Voyeefrom the Watch Tower Camden Fourth Series 21 (London, 1978), 42-43,46,50; also see J.A. Downie, Robert Harley Press: and the Propaganda and public opinion in the age of Swift and Defoe (Cambridge, 1979), 22-23 29 Pincus, `Coffeehouses', 821 30 Ibid, 820-2 1; Pincus' against evidence one might hold Downie's example of a describes pamphlet which a group of coffeehouse visitors relocating to a tavern because they feel that the coffeehouse was `too public' for their political discussion ('Public and Private', 71).

9 coffeehouse too became a forum for societies and clubs. Sometimes tavern and coffeehouse circles were able to join forces: the `aristocratic' or `Roman' Whigs who patronised the Grecian coffeehouse (a group which included Shaftesbury and the young Robert Harley) and the above-mentioned Calves-Head Whigs formed an alliance during the late 1690s which was mainly maintained through Toland's propaganda activities. 31

Public houses and coffeehouses, then, provided a public sphere for political debate which was at times closely linked to the official sphere of parliamentary politics by the simple fact that politicians patronised these places in order to listen to public opinion. A frequenter of these houses, whether politician or propagandist, was inevitably exposed to a myriad of voices of `all ideological stripes', although it should be pointed out that establishments carried a bias according to the political persuasion 32 of their clientele. Defoe, as Backscheider has pointed out, shared the coffeehouse culture of his age enthusiastically. `Always a clubbable man', he visited `several of the coffeehouses around Guildhall and the Exchange', where he frequently took part 33 in debating clubs. Coffeehouses offered Defoe the chance to absorb the linguistic idiosyncrasies, opinions and thought processes of the many public voices around him.

If the education Defoe received at Morton's academy represented his first conscious training as a writer, then the world of public debate in London's coffeehouses and taverns may be viewed as the second phase in his development as a polemicist.

Recent revisions of Habermas' chronology for the emergence of the public sphere should not distract from the fact that the year 1695 did constitute an important year in English history. The final expiry of the Licensing Act initiated a

`communications revolution' which not only changed the face of English journalism but also had a lasting effect on the political landscape.34 The end of pre-publication state censorship resulted in an explosion of printed matter issuing from the presses.

Within three months of the end of licensing, the `confused and reticent' official

31 Worden, `Introduction', 40-42 32 Pincus, `Coffeehouses', 818-19 33 Backscheider, 48 34 G. S. DeKrey, A Fractured Society. The Politics of London in the First Age of Party, 1688-1715 (Oxford, 1985), 213,218

10 London Gazette, which was published once a week, was overtaken by the tri-weekly 35 newspapers the Post Boy, the Post Man and the Flying Post. By the end of William's reign six years later, at least fourteen new London newspapers had begun publication, a number which rose to eighteen in 1709 (including one daily 36 newspaper). One historian has estimated that, between 1689 and 1727, the number of published titles, which included books, pamphlets, sermons, journals, and newspapers, saw on increase of over eighty percent compared to the three preceding decades. To put this into context, during the following three decades the number of publications only increased by fifteen percent. 37

The end of censorship allowed at least some of the voices of the coffeehouses and alehouses to be transferred into print and the emergence of an extensive, politically motivated newspaper press `greatly facilitated the political education' of 38 the population. Indeed, a dialectic relationship developed between the press and these arenas for public debate, since many establishments placed regular subscriptions to newspapers and journals for the convenience of their patrons, as well as offering sets of books and pamphlets in their drinking rooms. 39Thus, the voices of the public- and coffeehouses at once shaped and were themselves shaped by the contents of pamphlets and journals. In some cases, printed materials were given a public voice in the literal sense, as it was not uncommon for newspapers and pamphlets to be read aloud to the patrons.

In this public sphere of opinion and debate, the nature of the reading public was dramatically transformed and this new, highly politicised readership helped to create a number of national best-sellers: Henry Sacheverell's Perils of False Brethren (1709) sold approximately 100,000 copies, Richard Steele's The Crisis (1714) 40,000 and

Defoe's The True-Born Englishman (1701) reached around 80,000 sales.40 The

35 R. B. Walker, `The Newspaper Press in the Reign of William III, ' Historical Journal 17:4 (1974), 694,698-99; Black, Press in the Eighteenth Century, 12 36 Walker, `Newspaper Press', 701; DeKrcy, Fractured Society, 214; Black, Press in the Eighteenth Century, 12-13 37 Hoppit, Land ofLiberty?, 178 38 DeKrey, Fractured Society, 215; J. Black, The English Press 1621-1861 (Stroud, 2001), 11 39 Pincus, `Coffeehouses', 819; Downie, Harley, 8-9; Clark Alehouses, 229 40 Hoppit, Land ofLiberty?, 181; DeKrey Fractured Society, 214 for craving news and opinions appeared insatiable and between 60,000 and 70,000 41 single newspaper copies were issued each week. It is perhaps also important to here emphasise that the newspaper press was to a significant extent shaped by the 42 market's competitive nature and overwhelming commercial pressures. The vast majority of newspapers were intended for profit and in an effort to establish and maintain sales outlets, journalists often wrote according to the political bias of the in 43 coffeehouses and taverns which they wanted to see their product. As a result, much of the newspaper press was characterised by party-political rhetoric and hyperbole, which sometimes reached a point where `rational political discourse ' became scarcely possible'. In an environment overrun by `partisan monsters', many in authors, their efforts to outdo their opponents, were often forced to adopt a more extreme (and more changeable) stance than they would normally have subscribed to. 45

Defoe was one of the most frequent contributors to the debates of the public sphere. During his career as a writer and commentator, he produced a wide variety of public voices on topics such as party politics, international relations, constitutional theory, religion and theology, trade, discoveries, social reform, street crime, the supernatural, and travel, to cite but a few of the subdivisions offered by the latest 46 edition of Defoe's collected writings. Indeed, the range to which Defoe's voices did has been and could extend the focus of much scholarly debate in recent years and the list of published titles thought to be by Defoe has been subject to a number of large scale revisions ever since George Chalmers published the first substantial Defoe in bibliography 1790.47 This initial list contained a `mere' 101 items, which, after

4' DeKrey Fractured Society, 214; Hoppit Land of Liberty?, 178 42 Black, English Press, 11 43 Ibid, 12,20 44 DeKrey Fractured Society, 219 45 Ibid, 219-20; Also see Pincus, `Coffeehouses', 813; Walker, `Newspaper Press', 701; Black, Press in the Eighteenth Century, 12-13 46 The The Works publication of of Daniel Defoe by Pickering and Chatto will be in 2008 completed and will comprise a total of 44 volumes. See the publishers's internet website for further information. 47 G. Chalmers, Life Daniel of Defoe, 2 °d edition (London, 1790)

12 several adjustments were made by four more Defoe biographers, eventually peaked at

572 items in J.R. Moore's A Checklist of the Writings of Daniel Defoe (1971). 48

More recently, however, the research of P.N. Furbank and W. R. Owens has shown that the nature of the evidence presented for the great majority of attributions made over the centuries ranges from `very flimsy' to `hopelessly flawed'. 49 Furbank and Owens' main objection to the work of previous Defoe bibliographers is the readiness with which they have made ascriptions on purely internal evidence, such as the particular style of writing of a piece or favourite topics and phrases of Defoe's. so

Drawing on their extensive reading of texts acknowledged as his own by Defoe and of other eighteenth century materials, these scholars, in particular Defoe's most prolific bibliographer J.R. Moore, have applied various sets of verbal `tests' to hitherto 51 fatherless tracts in order to demonstrate Defoe's authorship of them. In other words, a significant number of Defoe attributions rested on little more than a scholar's supposed intimate knowledge of, and ability to recognise, Defoe's public voices.

Thus, the great majority of items on Moore's extensive list of Defoe texts were attributed on the basis of `madly unsystematic methods', which were usually guided by a notion of self-proclaimed scholarly authority. 52 In a final rejection of these methods, Furbank and Owens have stated somewhat polemically that `authority might 53 have a rightful place in religion' but could `hardly be said to do so in bibliography'.

In order to address what they perceived to be the errors of earlier Defoe bibliography, Furbank and Owens created their own set of criteria with which to test

48 Walter Wilson Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe (1830); William Lee Daniel Defoe: His Life, and Recently Discovered Writings (1869); James Crossley, manuscript list of Defoe attributions drawn up between 1869 and 1883; W. P. Trent, `Defoe: The Newspaper and the Novel' in the Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. 9, A. W. Ward & A. R. Waller eds (Cambridge, 1912); for a detailed recent discussion of the development of the Defoe canon see P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, `The Defoe that never was. A Tale of De-Attribution, ' American Scholar 66: 2 (1997), 276-84 49 Critical Bibliography, xvi, xix; also see their earlier publications The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe (London, 1988) and Defoe De Attributions (London, 1994). 50 Ibid, xiv-xx 51 Ibid, xix; Furbank & Owens, `The Defoe that never was', 281-82 52 Furbank & Owens, `The Defoe that 282 53 never was', Ibid

13 attributions for the validity. They assert that external evidence (defined as

`contemporary' ascriptions made within living memory of Defoe, i. e. before 1790)

`has a kind of logical priority over internal' evidence and have consequently made it a

`strict rule not to treat a work as certainly by Defoe on the basis of internal evidence 54 alone'. While favourite phrases are discounted, `favourite allusions (anecdotes, historical references, legendary stories the like) favourite and and also ... quotations' 55 are taken into consideration when making an ascription. Using these principles of author-attribution, Furbank and Owens have reduced the number of items included in their Defoe bibliography to some 276 texts.

This drastic revision of the number of publications attributed to Defoe has not gone unopposed within the scholarly community. Maximilian E. Novak, in particular, believes that Furbank and Owens have gone too far in de-attributing over 200 texts.

Novak has asserted that Furbank and Owens' research is `so far... from systematic' 56 that one may reach the conclusion that `they believe what they want to believe'.

Moreover, Novak, following in the footsteps of earlier bibliographers like Moore, feels that most of the de-attributions are `in defiance of all that we know of Defoe', in particular his protean nature, and that Furbank and Owens have been too biographical in their approach, removing texts because they did not conform to what they thought

Defoe might plausibly have written. 57 In his final dismissal of the revised bibliography, Novak claims that, because their `grasp of Defoe's ideas and those of his period often seems fuzzy', Furbank and Owens lack the necessary academic knowledge to de-attribute texts convincingly. " Novak, in contrast, feels that he possessesthe necessary expertise to judge correctly the validity of items on the Defoe canon. In his recent biography he claims that in `judging what Defoe actually wrote', he is able to draw upon his `years of reading his [Defoe's] texts and those of his 59 contemporaries' .

54 Critical Bibliography, xxv-xxviii 55 Ibid, xxvii 56 Maximillian E. Novak, `The Defoe Canon: Attribution and De-attribution, ' Huntington Library Quarterly 59: 1 (1996), 89 57 Ibid, 99 58 Ibid, 104 59 Novak, 5

14 Any scholar working on Defoe's writings inevitably has to reach a decision with regard to which one of the several bibliographies will form the basis of the research to be undertaken. The present thesis broadly espouses Furbank and Owens' approach and uses their bibliography as the main point of reference for its selection of Defoe texts. Questioning Novak's assertion that 'Defoe's syntax, style, vocabulary, and use of proverbs and popular phrases was unique', this study shares the opinion that `favourite `a false dangerous delusion. it be the phrases' are step and a ... will always case that other writers use these phrases as well: they are not Defoe's private 6° property'. Since `members of the same speech community will have various linguistic and communicative features in common', the supposedly idiosyncratic 61 nature of favourite phrases becomes problematic. At the same time, the use of language is not rigid, and its constant evolution does not guarantee absolute linguistic homogeneity within a speech community. Indeed, linguistic homogeneity `may well `2 not be found even within an Idiolect'. A combination of the notion that speech communities share certain linguistic features and the idea that at the same time an individual's use of language is constantly subject to change makes any ascription on the basis of a supposed idiosyncratic use of language far too uncertain. With this in mind, it is contended that studying fewer texts of at least near certain status will result in a more reliable picture of Defoe than an inflated canon including texts that may well have not been written by Defoe. I agree with J.A. Downie that instead of generating order, `a wrong attribution generates chaos and confusion' and `could 63 mean that we end up writing about the wrong man'.

Furthermore, Furbank and Owens have made the important point that

`ascriptions on the scale of those made to Defoe [by Moore, for example] could be 64 said, in a sense, to create a new author'. As an extension of this statement, one might also add that misattributions have distorted the interpretation of publications generally accepted to be by Defoe. A critical illumination of a Defoe text which draws

60 Novak, 5; Critical Bibliography, xxvii 61 D. Graddol et al, Describing Language (Milton Keynes & Philadelphia, 1987), 20 62 lbid 63 J. A. Downie, 'Defoe's Early Writings, ' Review of English Studies 46: 182 (1995), 227 64 Critical Bibliography, xiii

15 extensively on materials which are unlikely to have been produced by Defoe attaches meanings to the text which are misleading; in the worst case, it might even produce a

`new' text. Chapter IV of the present thesis deals with one such case, Volume One of

Defoe's The Family Instructor (1715). Hitherto, scholars have agreed with I. N.

Rothman's assertion that the conduct book was Defoe's response to the Schism Act of

1714. Rothman's argument relies largely on Defoe's continued opposition to the act in his pamphlet literature, yet only two of the five pamphlets listed by Rothman can 65 be shown to be at least `probably' by Defoe. What an investigation of more convincingly attributed pamphlets of the years 1714-15 actually shows is that Defoe had become preoccupied with the issue of Jacobitism. Consequently, this thesis contends, it is far more likely that The Family Instructor was Defoe's response to the wide-spread Jacobite-inspired unrests of the period.

Even in the context of Furbank and Owens' reduced number of 276 items,

Defoe's publication record is nevertheless considerable. The sheer multitude of different voices Defoe employed in his publications makes it difficult for the Defoe scholar to incorporate every one of his texts in his/her discussion. Even the most extensive of Defoe biographies typically does not cover all of the texts the author 66 accepts to be by Defoe. An in-depth analysis of all of Defoe's public voices would necessarily result in several volumes and thus extend beyond the scope of a doctoral thesis. Therefore, in order to offer a meaningful discussion of some of Defoe's rhetorical practices and polemical strategies, the present study focuses on the public voices which Defoe produced in response to four major socio-political events and developments of the period 1697-1717: the standing army controversy of 1697-99, the political crisis surrounding the issue of occasional conformity in the early 1700s, the resurgence of Jacobitism during the years 1714-16, and the Whig schism of 1717.

65 I. N. Rothman, 'Defoe's The Family Instructor: A Response to the Schism Act', Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 74 (1980), 213; Critical Bibliography, 145-46; idem De Attributions, 64-65 66 For example, Novak, who has asserted that Trent's and Moore's bibliographies, which cover up to 570 items, are more accurate than Furbank and Owens' list ('Defoe Canon', 85), essentially offers a selection of the Defoe texts he believes to have been by authored Defoe. Novak refers to fewer than three hundred Defoe publications in Fictions, his Master of which extends to over seven hundred pages.

16 These events required Defoe to comment on issues which dominated the political discourse of the early eighteenth century - constitutional theory, party political ideologies, the concepts of resistance and obedience, religious toleration, and standing armies - and inspired him to produce some of his most ambitious literary works. Finally, it is hoped that the limited number of texts referred to in this thesis constitutes a `common denominator' for both Furbank and Owens' reductionist approach to the

Defoe canon as well as Novak's more liberal method of author attribution.

The two decades covered by this study represent the period in Defoe's life during which he most closely engaged with matters of high politics. In the 1690s, as

Novak has rightly stated, Defoe `began finding his public voice as a writer on politics 67 and moral reform'. However, the publications used to describe the nature of Defoe's early public voices have not escaped bibliographical dispute. Recent revisions have seen the number of reliably attributed texts for the period 1688-1701 reduced from 45 to 30 items, with only two of these items published before 1697.68As a result, Defoe's first extended propaganda campaign for which reliably attributed texts exist was his 69 contribution to the standing army controversy. Indeed, the controversy is perhaps one of the best examples for the interplay between the public sphere of the taverns and coffeehouses and the official sphere of parliamentary politics. The anti-army opposition largely organised itself around the Calves-Head and Grecian or Country Whigs and saw an at times closely coordinated collaboration of propagandists and politicians in their effort to influence public opinion against William III's request for a significant number of military forces. Defoe, as is well known, was an `enthusiastic propagandist' for William and in his defence of the king's request, he essentially

67 Novak, 135 68 Downie, 'Defoe's Early Writings', 225; idem, `Ben Overton: An Alternative Author of A Dialogue betwixt Whig and Tory', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 70 (1976), 263-71; Critical Bibliography, 7-31 69 Defoe published three pamphlets on this issue: Some Reflections On a Pamphlet lately Publish 'd, Entituled, An Argument Shewing that A Standing Army Is Inconsistent with A Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution Monarchy of the English (1697), An Argument, Shewing, That a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, is Not Inconsistent with A Free Government, etc. (1698), and A Brief Reply to the History of Standing Armies in England (1698); see Critical Bibliography, 11-15, items no. 7,8 and 12, for an explanation of the attribution of these pamphlets to Defoe.

17 70 answered the coffeehouse voices referred to above. The idea that Defoe aligned himself with the Court Whigs during the controversy has been widely accepted. That important differences there were between the rhetoric and arguments employed by

Defoe and the other Court writers appears to have escaped scholarly attention, however. In this context, Chapter I provides a detailed analysis of Defoe's contribution to the debate on the army and argues that Defoe, by addressing directly the opposition's constitutional arguments, developed a public voice which was clearly different from his those of fellow pro-army writers. In fact, Defoe objected so strongly to the opposition's reading of ancient British history that he developed his pro-army voice in one of his best known publications, The True-Born Englishman

1701). The poem, as Chapter II demonstrates, continued Defoe's attack on Country

Whig historiography, in particular its central notion of the Gothic balance and its model of virtue and moral integrity, the Gothic Barons.

The accession of Queen Anne in 1702 and the correlated revival of High-

Church and Tory interests forced Defoe into a sharp re-adjustment of his public voices, since now he had to contend with writers from the opposite end of the political spectrum. The focus of public debate shifted from the extent of the king's powers to the threat which religious nonconformity allegedly posed to the stability of the nation.

In other words, Defoe was no longer defending his political ideas and a much-admired monarch but, in essence, he was required to defend his identity as a Dissenter. The

High Church attack on religious nonconformity eventually resulted in the occasional conformity controversy and Chapter III offers an account of the development of in Defoe's public voices this context. What becomes apparent is that he took two distinct stances during the controversy, which are neatly divided by his imprisonment for the publication of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702). Insisting that occasional conformity was not a political but a theological issue, Defoe's initial strategy was to condemn the practice as damaging to the Dissenters' cause and, as the investigation shows, some of his arguments were surprisingly close to those of the High-Church propagandists at this time. However, once Defoe had been exposed to personally the anger of the extreme Anglicans and Tories, he altered his rhetorical

70 Novak, 91

18 strategy and once more employed his constitutional ideas to defend both the practice of occasional conformity and the Dissenters' right to a toleration. This campaign, it is argued, found its culmination in a further verse satire, Jure Divino (1706). The poem employed the same polemical strategy as The True-Born Englishman in that Defoe focused on and attempted to dismantle what he believed to be a central aspect of the opposition's case. In the context of the occasional conformity controversy this aspect was the High-Church attempt to exert an almost totalitarian control over individual consciences. In Jure Divino Defoe countered the rhetoric of the extreme Anglicans by asserting the constitutional rights of the individual, thus offering his readers a comprehensive theory for the justification of the legality of religious nonconformity.

Both the standing army and occasional conformity controversies had seen Defoe employ his public voices in a highly vocal and overtly polemical manner. While

Defoe's public voices showed a considerable amount of consistency during the

standing army controversy, his campaign in favour of religious toleration had forced him to change his stance at least once. It might be noted that the shift in his rhetorical

strategy can be linked to Defoe's dual identity as a Dissenter and a Whig. During the early months of the occasional conformity controversy Defoe was clearly writing as a

Dissenter who was concerned about the negative implications of the practice for the theological integrity of nonconformity. After his imprisonment and punishment in the pillory, however, he began to write as a Whig who was defending the personal rights

of the individual, in this case the Dissenter. Defoe was debating the effects of the

political public sphere on the private/spiritual sphere of the individual and concluded that a strict demarcation between the two was required. Less then a decade later,

however, we find a reversal of this stance in Defoe's writing. With The Family

Instructor (1715), Defoe, as Chapter IV seeks to demonstrate, attempted to combat

the growing, Jacobite-inspired social discontent, which he felt could potentially

overthrow the Protestant succession. Private thought and action and the public sphere

were no longer as clearly distinguished as they had been in his writings on religious

toleration. Recent events in the streets of London had shifted the focus of Defoe's

public voices from an assessment of matters of high politics to the regulation of

private conduct. Consequently, his target audience too had changed from politicians

19 and fellow journalists to those who represented the main source of disaffection, crafts- and tradesmen and their families and apprentices. In the context of this crossover from the public to the private, Defoe's rhetoric of obedience in The Family Instructor did, of course, still represent a public political act: the conduct book, it is contended, was designed to promote the political stability of the kingdom.

The pamphlet which provides the focus for the final chapter of this study,

Treasonable Conspiracy, in many ways represents a rhetorical `bridge' between

Defoe's first propaganda campaign supporting a standing army and what would be one of the last occasions on which he commented directly on matters of high politics, the Whig Schism. In the pamphlet Defoe revisited a number of topics he had already discussed extensively in the past: the nobility, foreign immigrants and standing armies. Yet, much of what Defoe had to say appeared to represent a complete volte- face to his former rhetorical stances: the nobility or barons where no longer the

`rascals' they had been in The True Born Englishman but models of virtue, foreign blood was now `spurious', and standing armies a tool of tyrannical rule. The key to understanding Defoe's rhetorical strategy in Treasonable Conspiracy, Chapter V argues, lies in the recognition of the ironic markers present in the text. Defoe, it can be shown, deliberately drew attention to his own earlier publications in order to ironically attack Toland and his unqualified support for the Stanhope administration.

Indeed, in many ways, at this point Defoe's public voice became increasingly private, in the sense that some of his rhetorical strategies border on a joke which could have only been understood by himself.

The picture of Defoe which emerges from the present study, is that of an occasional writer who permanently rose to the challenge of a new occasion. His rhetorical strategy was often grounded in a very specific polemical goal; even treatises such as Jure Divino, which has been said to operate at `a higher level of generality' than Defoe's pamphlets, can be shown to engage with issues of contemporary " political rhetoric and party politics in a highly specific manner. Defoe was, moreover, clearly prepared to sacrifice rhetorical consistency in order to achieve polemical success. However, this is not to suggest that he also sacrificed his long

71 P.N. Furbank, `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 2,18

20 held political beliefs. Even a problematic text like Treasonable Conspiracy offers some evidence for an unchanged stance on a number of Defoe's favourite topics.

21 Chapter I

`Exchanging Tyrant one for Three hundred' - Defoe and the Standing Army Controversy, 1697-99.

22 The Standing Army controversy of 1697-99 represented the first real

opportunity after the Glorious Revolution for the young Daniel Defoe to express his

support for William III in writing and assert his notions on constitutional theory.

Following the end of the nine-years' war against France in 1697, William III felt it was necessary to keep a large part of his army mobilised to counter the military threat

France still posed. William, unlike some of his English subjects, had realised that the

Treaty of Ryswick, by failing to solve the problem of who was to succeed the ailing

Charles II of Spain, did not provide a framework for a permanent European peace.'

Parliament, however, disagreed with the king. In the eyes of the vast majority of MPs, the principal cause of the war with France had been removed when Louis XIV recognised William as king of England. In addition, the nation was looking forward to lower taxes and demobilisation, as well as a return to `normality'. The peace was also regarded as a perfect opportunity to reduce to a minimum England's connections with the hated Dutch. Despite continued pressure from William's ministers in favour of the king's request, the Commons defied the king and in December 1697 passed a resolution that all troops raised since 1680 should be disbanded, which meant a 2 reduction in William's forces from over 90,000 to 10,000 men. An army of this size was wholly inappropriate to lead any meaningful military campaigns against France, which had almost 400,000 soldiers in pay in 1690 and which recruited an average of 3 35,000 men a year during the first decade of the eighteenth century. A year later, parliament voted in favour of a further reduction of the army to 7,000 soldiers.

However, the final insult to William came in 1699 when Parliament, indulging in its growing xenophobia, insisted on an army of native-born Englishmen. As a result, his William had to send Dutch Blue Guards back to the Republic. The king was so distraught at these developments that he briefly considered abdicating. 4 Despite the fact that a small standing force survived the onslaught of parliament, by the time the

Rose, 144; J. Hoppit, Land of Liberty? England 1689-1727 (Oxford, 2000), 106-8, 156 2 StephenB. Baxter, William III (London, 1966), 360- 370; Rose, 93-99 3 See M. S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 1618-1789 (Leicester, 1988), 83-85, for the size of European armies during this period. 4 Baxter, William 111,370

23 in controversy ended 1699 the two Houses had virtually destroyed one of the most vital prerogatives of the crown - the monarch's right to raise and maintain an army.

Defoe's role as a Court propagandist during the Standing Army Controversy has received wide-spread scholarly attention and, in the process, two distinct views of Defoe's relationship with William III and his Whig government have materialised. On the one hand are those scholars who have claimed that Defoe was in the direct employment of the king. John Robert Moore, for example, has stated that `it is certain that Defoe was acting as a trusted agent of the king and that he had accepted the task which he later referred to as "writing within doors"' around 1692.5 During the course of this employment, Defoe became William's `friend'. 6 Similarly, Frank Bastian has asserted that Defoe was `propagandist and confidential advisor to William III', although not until the `last eighteen months of that monarch's life'.? Moreover,

Bastian asserts that prior to his role as the king's intimate, Defoe had already been working as a `government propagandist'; his standing army tracts contain indications that he was `applying himself to an imposed task'. 8 Further, somewhat more tentative, support for this view comes from Paula Backscheider, who views an acquaintance between Defoe and King William as a distinct possibility. 9

This notion of Defoe, the `Friend of William', has been variously challenged.

One of the first scholars to doubt Moore's assertion was Lois Schwoerer, who thought

Defoe `served the court as a paid pamphleteer' but was not a particularly `close 1° intimate of king and court'. Similarly, J.P. Kenyon has argued that any suggestion that Defoe could have been in the direct employment of William `misunderstands the relations which could possibly exist between a reigning monarch and a low-born journalist'. Dissenting Rather, one could reasonably suppose that Defoe was in the

J.R. Moore, `Daniel Defoe: King William's Pamphleteer and Intelligence Agent, ' Huntington Library Quarterly 34: 3 (1971), 256 6 Idem, Daniel Defoe: Citizen of the Modern World (Chicago & London, 1958), 70,73 F. Bastian, Defoe 's Early Life (London & Basingstoke, 1981), 7 8 Ibid, 206 9 Backscheider,71-2,108,558n 'o L. G. Schwoerer, `The Literature of the Standing Army Controversy, 1697-1699, ' Huntington Library Quarterly 18 (1965), 195n

24 `employ of the Junto, severally or collectively'. " Recent attempts to shed light on

Defoe's relationship with his king and the government have offered more extensive accounts of this aspect of Defoe's biography. For example, Downie has highlighted that, beside the problem of mis-attribution of texts to Defoe, `there is little or no actual evidence' either amongst known biographical information or in his pamphlets 12 which supports Defoe's claim. Therefore, claims that he wrote to the order of the government or that he enjoyed a close friendship with the king necessarily `remain in 13 the realms of speculation'. A somewhat more forthright view is offered by the most recent essay on the issue in question. Furbank and Owens have advanced the notion that Defoe, after he had been imprisoned for publishing the seditious libel The

Shortest Way with the Dissenters, invented his acquaintance with the king in order to save himself from the pillory. Having grown fond of this `ingenious ploy', Defoe

`would embellish [it] lovingly over the years to come'. 14It is this more sceptical view of Defoe's position within the Court environment which the present chapter seeks to adopt.

Another focus of study has been the nature of Defoe's contribution to the

Standing Army Controversy. In this context, J.G. A. Pocock's analysis of Defoe's pro- army propaganda offers one of the most extensive accounts of the ideological position 15 occupied by Defoe. Defoe is a `modern', Pocock asserts, `writing to defend the Junto Whigs, the Bank of England, and the standing army'. 16 Defoe's `modernism'

" J.P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles. The Politics of Party, 1689-1720 (Cambridge, 1977), 57 12 J.A. Downie, `Daniel Defoe: King William's Pamphleteer?, ' Eighteenth Century Life 12:3 (1988), 106 13 Ibid, 114 14 P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, `Defoe and King William: A Sceptical Enquiry, ' Review of English Studies 52: 206 (2001), 227-32 15 J.G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition 2"d edition (Princeton & Oxford, 2003); idem, Virtue, Commerce, and History (Cambridge, 1985). It is perhaps worthwhile to highlight that Pocock's account almost exclusively refers to just one of Defoe's standing army pamphlets, An Argument Shewing that a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, Is Not Inconsistent with a Free Government (1698). Some of the points made with regard to this pamphlet are subsequently related to Defoe's The True-Born Englishman (1701). 16 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 433-4

25 derived from his belief that `true freedom be found in ... could only commercial society, where the individual might profit by wealth and enlightenment and did not risk his liberty in paying others to defend and govern him, so long as he retained "7 parliamentary control of the purse strings. Thus, Defoe's justification of a standing army was firmly anchored in the `rapidly developing style of political economy', which, beside land, allowed trade and credit to become sources of `political stability 18 and virtue'. This, Pocock contends, may be seen in a `confrontation' of the anti- army propagandist Andrew Fletcher with Defoe, which demonstrates clearly an

`antithesis between virtue and commerce, republicanism and liberalism, classicism 19 and progressivism'.

In contrast to Pocock's emphasis on the modernity of Defoe's ideological stance, Manuel Schonhorn suggests that Defoe's language and attitudes can, in fact, 2° be viewed as `old-fashioned'. Unlike propagandists from both sides in the 1690s,

Defoe did not believe that parliament was the bulwark of English liberties. Instead, he displayed a `tendency to delimit the power of parliaments, and to reject their 21 continuing and increasing antagonism to the institution of monarchy'. Especially,

Defoe's notion of the `magnipotence of parliaments' demonstrated his antagonistic attitude towards William's parliaments: Defoe, Schonhorn suggests, had invented the word `magnipotent' in order to highlight the undue, even arbitrary, power parliament had assumed. This becomes most apparent in an essay of 1701, in which Defoe,

`perhaps unconsciously, connected his heady parliaments with the arbitrary despot

[Louis XIV] by calling the latter "magnipotent. "'22 Echoing traditional royalist sentiments, Defoe saw parliaments as `bodies dedicated not to the preservation but to the destruction of the perilous balance of the nation's constitution'. Defoe's `deeply felt ideology of monarchy and war' meant that his language was different not merely

17 Idem, Virtue, 231 18 Idem, Machiavellian Moment, 426 19 Idem, Virtue, 231 20 Manual Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics. Parliament, Power, Kingship and Robinson Crusoe (Cambridge, 1991), 59 21 Ibid 22 Ibid, 60

26 from that of the Country opposition but also from the language of the ministerial 23 supporters.

The present chapter only partially accepts these readings of Defoe's pro-army propaganda by Pocock and Schonhorn. Defoe's argument that parliamentary control of the purse was a sufficient counterbalance to a monarch with a standing army certainly had its roots in the increasing political importance of commerce and trade, but it was not representative of the overall tone of Defoe's rhetoric. Rather, all of

Defoe's publications in favour of standing forces are characterised by the language of royal prerogative. It is a sustained focus on the rights of the king and his function as a governmental estate, this study contends, which made Defoe's propaganda different from that of opposition and ministerial supporters. In this context, his warnings of a potential parliamentary tyranny are little more than a by-product of his central constitutional argument, the need to keep intact the full scope of the powers of the crown. In fact, if Defoe felt as antagonistic towards this governmental estate as

Schonhorn suggests, then one has to wonder why he repeatedly asked for the army question to be left to `Parliament, who are proper Judges of the Fact, and have always been very careful both of our Liberty and our Safety. '24

It is important to highlight that the present chapter is not a biographical study which seeks to establish the exact details of Defoe's relationship with William III. Rather, it purports to be an analysis of the rhetoric Defoe employed in his efforts to

support the king's request for a significant number of standing forces. A study of this

kind may, of course, still provide important insights into Defoe's position within the

Court Whig context and a further aim of this chapter is to question Bastian's

suggestion that Defoe collaborated so closely with the government that he `ghosted'

or even co-wrote some of Somers' publications, including `his famous Balancing

23 Ibid, 49,58-9 24 Daniel Defoe A Brief Reply to the History of Standing Armies in England (1698), in Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 1, p. 98; also see Some Reflections On a Pamphlet lately Publish 'd, Entituled, An Argument Shewing that A Standing Army Is inconsistent with A Free Government, And Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy (1697), ibid, 40, and An Argument Shewing, That a Standing Army, with Consent of Parliament, is Not Inconsistent with A Free Government, etc. (1698), ibid, 63.

27 25 Letter'. To achieve this, this chapter endorses the point of departure suggested by

Downie, who insists that any attempt to establish whether Defoe `really was King

William's pamphleteer, and not simply a volunteer... must turn to the pamphlets 26 themselves'. However, before a meaningful analysis of Defoe's contribution to the controversy may be undertaken, it is necessary to explore the political context in which the pamphlets were produced and to investigate the ideas to which Defoe was reacting.

That the dichotomy of Whig and Tory was the `cardinal fact of English political life in the 1690s' is a commonplace of late seventeenth-century historiography. 27Yet, the political landscape during the reign of William III, in particular its early years, was rather less polarised than this statement might suggest. Contemporaries readily associated the labels with `two broad and mutually hostile political traditions', but beyond that, numerous cross-currents of political thought and sensibilities on either 28 side meant that party affiliation could at times be highly elusive. Several factors could, individually or collectively, influence party allegiance: loyalty to traditional party principles, one's attitude towards the power of the executive, and, rather more 29 pragmatically, one's position with regard to the government. Party allegiance was thus a complex hybrid and it was not unusual to find men from different ends of the political spectrum brought together temporarily by a shared concern about a specific political issue, material considerations, or simply by their exclusion from office. This type of strategic behaviour was particularly evident in the traditional opposition "0 between `Court' and `Country', the strongest political cross-current of the period.

The Court-Country polarity `manifested itself from time to time', usually when

25 Bastian, Defoe's Early Life, 207,306-7 26 Downie, `Daniel Defoe: King William's pamphleteer? ', 107 27 Rose, 63; H. Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics in the reign of William 111 (Manchester, 1977), 316-7 28 Rose, 64; Hayton, Land of Liberty, 435,438 29 Harris, 148 30 D. Hayton, The House of Commons 1690-1715, Vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2002), 436; Harris, 161-69

28 issues 31 traditional country dominated contemporary politics. On these occasions,

Whig and Tory politicians, without ever entirely abandoning their basic party principles, collaborated under the banner of a Country party to oppose the king's administration. Indeed, a small number of Whig politicians, as we shall see, never entirely cast off their Country clothing. However, the Country party, as Hayton has asserted, `did not have a continuous existence' and the majority of key political issues were still decided along Whig-Tory party lines. 32

insistence William III's upon a mixed administration during the early months of his reign did little to clear up the confusion surrounding party political alignment. 33

The new king considered the political disagreements of his subjects an unwelcome from his distraction military campaign against France. In order to avoid becoming a prisoner of party, William employed political managers who could, he hoped, help him implement his foreign policy efficiently, regardless of their political affiliation.

The result was a `hotchpotch administration' of politicians of violently opposed principles, which encountered considerable difficulties in carrying government 34 proposals. In particular, those who subscribed to Whiggish principles, enraged by

William's reluctance to reward them for their support during the succession crisis of `Jacobite' 1688-9 and punish the Tories, became increasingly partisan and 35 business obstructive. The of the House became so confused that one contemporary commentator observed that `nobody can know one day what a House of Commons 36 would do the next'.

his After the failure of plan for a mixed government,William, exasperatedwith the antics of the parliamentary Whigs, plumped for the Tories after the general election of 1690. However, the new Tory-dominated ministry too failed to manage the king's business effectively. After a very uncomfortable opposition enquiry into

31 D. Hayton, `The "Court" interest and the party system, 1689 - c. 1720,' in Clyve Jones (ed. ) Party and Management in Parliament 1660-1784 (New York, 1984), 40, 65; See below, 37-42, for a more detailed discussion of country ideology. 32 Hayton, `The "Country" interest', 65; Harris, 150 33 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,438; Harris, 147-48 34 Ibid, 64,73-76; Hayton, Commons, 445-6; Horwitz, 98 35 Rose, 75-76 36 Sir John Lowther, cited in Horwitz, 208

29 government expenditure, the administration was forced to revise downwards their demands with regard to supply during the 1691-2 session and suffered further 37 embarrassing defeats during the following session. The Whigs, meanwhile, despite having been stung by the favour William had shown the Tories, decided to demonstrate to the king that `whiggery produced more efficient and reliable royal 38 servants than toryism'. From the autumn of 1693, the Whig party, with the newly- established `Junto' (John Somers, Edward Russell, Thomas Wharton and Charles

Montagu) at its core, began to generate something like party unity by co-ordinating 39 the activities of their followers on a large scale. The Junto's control of parliamentary affairs gradually improved and William, hoping to finally find a reliable ministry, began to transfer power from the Tories to the Whigs, a process which was completed in early 1694. The Whigs, traditionally a party of opposition, had been drawn into the royal administration, while the Tories were forced to abandon their status as a government party and became increasingly alienated from the court.

However, despite their new-found unity under the leadership of the Junto, the

Whig party retained a highly vocal Country section, which did not easily fall into the official party line. These backbenchers had retained the oppositional stance of the 40 `Old' or first Whigs and their traditional hostility towards the executive. Advocating what they considered to be a pure brand of whiggery, these radical Whigs (who also referred to themselves as `Real' or `Modern' Whigs) felt that the Revolution 41 Settlement had not gone far enough in curtailing the royal prerogative. Moreover, the growth of Crown patronage, these Whigs claimed, had undermined the independence of Parliament and caused wide-spread corruption within the government. In their eyes, the Modern Whigs of the Junto had been `too ready to sacrifice their principles on the altar of political expediency' in order to gain the king's trust. 42

37 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,445-47 38 Rose, 82 39 Harris, 151; Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,447; also see below, 34 40 Dickinson, 102 41 Rose, 78,80; Dickinson, 103; B. Worden, `Whig history and Puritan Politics: The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow revisited, ' Historical Research 75: 188 (2002), 226 42 Rose, 83; also see Downie, Harley, 20-1

30 In the mid-1690s the dissenting voices of the Country element of the Whig party were muted somewhat by the dominance of the Junto in Parliament, which was demonstrated by the rather `sedate' general election of 1695.43 In addition, loyalty of the Whig backbenchers to the Court was strengthened by the fears raised by the

Jacobite `Assassination Plot' of 1696. However, the conclusion which the Treaty of

Ryswick had brought to the War of the League of Augsburg in September 1697 proved to be the beginning of the end for the Whig Junto. The war had seen an unprecedented expansion of the army, which, in turn, had incurred enormous costs to a war-weary nation. It was now an absolute priority to reduce the forces to an acceptable size in order to lighten the burden which had been placed on English tax- payers. William, however, made it clear to his ministers that he intended to retain a in his forces. substantial number of soldiers Yet, the king's failure to name a figure - it is he funding believed that wanted sufficient to maintain 30-35,000 soldiers - made almost impossible the Court Whigs' task of successfully representing his request in 44 Parliament. The ensuing Standing Army Controversy once again polarised opinions along Court-Country lines. Indeed, the entire affair has been depicted as `the locus as classicus of the "Country" party's campaign against the Junto Whig ministry '.

The Standing Army Controversy was characterised by the two distinct arenas of Parliament and the press, although, as will be highlighted below, important connections between the two spheres did exist. In the House of Commons, discontented Whigs united under the leadership of Paul Foley and his nephew by 46 marriage, Robert Harley. Assuming the title of the `New Country Party', the Old

Whigs were joined by the Tories, who, out of office and unable to create a new

`Church in danger' agitation, had lost much of their parliamentary influence and 47 naturally found themselves drawn to the opposition alliance. The New Country

43 Rose, 89; Harris, 189 44 Rose, 94; 45 D. Hayton (ed), `Debates in the House of Commons 1697-1699, ' Camden Miscellany = (Camden Soc., 4`h series, 34,1987), 345 46 Rose, 90-1; Horwitz, 317-18 47 Lois G. Schwoerer "No Standing Armies! " The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth- Century England (Baltimore & London, 1974), 161; Hayton, Commons, Vol. 1,489; Harris, 164

31 Party had been able to make an impact in the House as early as 1694-95 but the collapse of Foley's beloved Land Bank Scheme and the Assassination Plot had 48 seriously harmed the opposition's political standing. The king's request for a significant standing army was not only an ideal opportunity for Foley and Harley to regain political credit but also to unite opposition MPs once again on an issue that 49 remained the litmus test of Country ideology. The fact that many MPs `still felt, as they had ten and twenty years before, that a standing army was as great a threat to their liberties as it was to their pocket books' is likely to have made the New Country 50 men confident of success. Moreover, Harley and Foley must have been aware of the support they would receive from those backbench opportunists who were simply unfriendly to the government and had identified the army question as an efficacious 5' rallying cry against the court. After all, under the Triennial Act the next general election had to be held in 1698 and any successful attack on the government increased 52 the likelihood of changes in Parliament. Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, it was

Harley who led the way for the New Country Party at a sitting of the whole House on

10 December 1697. He moved that all troops raised since 1680 should be disbanded, 53 which in effect meant a drastic reduction from 87,000 to 8,000 soldiers. As a telling reflection of the general mood of the Commons, the motion was accepted by the 54 House without division.

The collaboration between Country Whigs and Tories did not, however, go beyond the walls of Parliament. In contrast to the Commons, the press war surrounding the army was fought almost exclusively between Court and Country

Whigs. In this context and somewhat misleadingly, John Childs has contended that the entire affair `both inside and outside parliament, was a giant red herring', because on the one hand it would have been impossible to `de-militarise the gentry and

48 Horwitz, 214-18; Harris, 165 49 Horwitz, 218 so Baxter, William III, 362 51 Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 162 52 Downie, Harley, 33 53 Horwitz, 222,226; Schwoerer suggests a figure as small as 6,500 soldiers (Antiarmy Ideology, 165). 54 Horwitz, 226; Hayton, `Debates', 349

32 aristocracy' and `wipe out the military expertise accumulated', while on the other hand, `nobody king - neither nor officers nor parliament - assumed that the army would be retained at full wartime strength after 1697'. As a result, Childs asserts, the 55 controversy was `a debate about details rather than principles'. I accept Childs' comments only within the limits of the parliamentary debate, since the anti-army campaign in the press did, as we shall see below, argue for a complete disbandment of

William's troops. Significantly, despite the ideological common ground one might fairly assume to have existed between the Court and Country Whigs, the affair proved to be highly divisive. There was, in fact, no real middle-ground to be occupied in the controversy: one either supported the retention of standing forces, regardless of the actual size demanded, or one advocated a complete disbandment of William's troops.

Even pamphleteers such as the anonymous author of Some Remarks Upon a late

Paper, who ostensibly positioned himself between `Those who are for no Army at all, and those who are for All the Army', failed to occupy what may be described as a balanced position between the poles. Despite the author's initial assurances, the pamphlet turns out to be little more than an attack on anti-army propaganda, while, in 56 the process, it reiterates some of the key arguments of the Court campaign. It is not too much to say, therefore, that there were no shades of grey in this `critical episode in 57 English intellectual history'. Ultimately, the decision was between William and the monarchical authority he represented and the power of parliament to limit, possibly severely, the influence of the crown. As the discussion below demonstrates, the debate outside parliament was not merely about details: Defoe's contribution to the press war was, in fact, largely characterised by a focus on political principles.

From the outset the press campaign was dominated by the Country Whigs.

Indeed, it was a pamphlet generally ascribed to the Anglo-Irishman John Trenchard and the MP Walter Moyle, An Argument Shewing, that a Standing Army is inconsistent with A Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution

55 John Childs, British army of William III, 1698-1702 (Manchester, 1987), 190-91 56 Some Remarks Upon a late Paper, Entituled, An Argument, Shewing, that a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy (1697), 1. The pro-Court nature of this pamphlet will be highlighted in the course of the discussion below. 57 Worden, `Introduction', 39

33 of the English Monarchy, which elevated the standing army question to the top of the political agenda in October 1697, almost two months before the issue was raised by

Harley in the Commons. Much of the Country opposition's eagerness to carry their ideological quarrel into the highly public realm of the press can be related to contemporary political organisation. One of the key features of the rise to power of the Whig Junto had been their ability to generate party unity. To achieve this, the

Court leaders had begun to disseminate important information and decisions to the

Whig rank and file. During regular meetings at one of the peers' country houses, the 58 Junto Lords discussed and agreed the broad outlines of their political strategy. Once a general plan of action had been established, one or two of the Lords attended larger meetings at venues such as the Rose Tavern in London, during which a Junto-selected spokesman informed the Whig faithful of the party's tactics prior to activity in Parliament 59 In those did the desired . cases where party rhetoric alone not produce results, financial incentives were employed to further strengthen support for party 60 policies. Thus, the voting consistency of Court followers was improved, while the

`authority of the party leaders was regularly confirmed'. 61 In an attempt to rival the effective party discipline of the Court Whigs, the Country opposition turned to the press.

The leaders of the New Country party, in particular Harley, realised that for any opposition group to be successful political attitudes had to be influenced on a large 62 scale. For one, the electorate as a whole had to be persuaded to support Country candidates in the forthcoming general election. More importantly, however, in order to form the `notoriously unorganised' body of uncommitted Country MPs into an 63 effective organ of opposition, a tangible Country manifesto had to be established.

Similar organisational structures to those of the ministry would be necessary for this undertaking. However, in contrast to the Court Whigs, the Country opposition did not have recourse to royal pensions and patronage to bring into line the more obstinate

58 Harris, 151; Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,468,470-1; Horwitz, 208-9 59 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,469 60 Horwitz, 213 61 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,486 62 The following section is largely based on Downie, Harley, 23-24,33 63 Downie, Harley, 23

34 MPs. In any case, financial incentives of this kind were considered to have a morally

corrupting influence on the individual and were therefore unacceptable as an

organisational tool. As a consequence, the opposition had to rely almost exclusively

on their persuasive skills to generate something like a party identity. Success, Harley

realised, could only be achieved through an extensive propaganda campaign which

would disseminate `country ideology' within and without doors.64 The early success

of Trenchard and Moyle's pamphlet had only served to highlight the growing importance of the press.

Like the Court Whigs, then, the Country Whig opposition undertook the

necessary work of organisation and co-ordination through a political club, albeit in a

somewhat less regimented fashion. Regular meetings were held at the Grecian

coffeehouse in Devereux Court in an effort to create a `respectable ideological and 65 historical pedigree' for the Country opposition. Beside Trenchard and Moyle, the

Grecian was patronised by MPs such as Lord Ashley (later 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury),

Robert Molesworth and Edmund Waller, as well as propagandists such as Andrew

Fletcher of Saltoun and John Toland; Harley too was known to have frequented this 66 coffeehouse. Not only did these informal meetings provide the Old Whigs with an

opportunity to discuss, shape and reinforce the political ideals of the Country

Opposition, it also enabled them to coordinate their parliamentary and press activities.

The appearance of individual opposition pamphlets was timed so that they either

paved the way for forthcoming Country activities in the Commons or reinforced 67 initiatives which had already been aired in the House or, indeed, both. This required

a well-organised, collaborative effort between the politicians and the propagandists.

Trenchard, for example, who has been identified as the `opposition chef de propagande', is known to have received `assistance and information' from Harley for 68 his pamphlets. Harley also appears to have been involved in the publication of

64 Ibid 65 Worden, `Introduction', 39; also see Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,471, and Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 177 66 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,471; Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 167; Downie, Harley, 22 67 Downie, Harley, 31-32 68 Ibid, 32-33

35 Toland's pamphlet The Militia Reform 'd. Conversely, the politicians found inspiration in anti-army publications for their speeches to the House. For example, in his maiden speech in the House of Commons, the somewhat eccentric Country Whig Sir Richard

Cocks borrowed extensively from Ludlow's Memoirs, one of the most important 69 publications of the anti-army campaign. The writers too used the meetings at the

Grecian to inform their pieces of propaganda. Just how closely the group collaborated is shown by the significant extent to which the anti-army writers reproduced passages 70 from each other's pamphlets. Indeed, sometimes pamphlets were so similar in style and content that they appeared to have been produced by the same person: Defoe, for example, stated that Trenchard's Second Part of An Argument and Fletcher's

Discourse Concerning Militias and Standing Armies `seem to me to be wrote by the 7' same Hand'. It should also be pointed out that many of the similarities were, as we shall see below, due to the fact that the Country writers drew on the same sources to inform their pamphlets.

Moreover, how centralised the country opposition's `propaganda machine' was is indicated by the fact that a series of anti-army publications were `hammer'd out' 72 from `the same Forge', namely the press of radical Whig publisher John Darby.

Beside pamphlets such as Trenchard's A Short History of Standing Armies and

Toland's The Militia Reform 'd, Darby published politico-philosophical treatises such as Algernon Sidney's Discourses concerning Government (1698), Millon's Historical and Political Works (1698) and the first collected Works of James Harrington (1700), as well as a history of the Civil War, the Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (1698). Toland, as Blair Worden has shown, appears to have had a hand in editing all of these new 73 editions. It might also be highlighted that the above named publications were not

`solitary but collaborative' projects, involving, beside Darby, `a community of individuals of a variety of social and political status: dukes, earls, lords and MPs',

69 Worden, `Introduction', 47. See David Hayton, `Sir Richard Cocks: The Political Anatomy of a Country Whig, ' Albion Vol. 20 (1988), 221-246, for an account of this particular Country MP. 70 Worden, `Whig history', 222 71 Defoe, An Argument, 64 72 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 98 73 Worden, `Introduction', 18-21; also see Champion, Republican Learning, 97-98

36 who furnished Toland with manuscript materials, money for the printing costs, or who simply lent cultural status to the publications by accepting his dedications. 74 The

Country opposition, it seems, was able to unite a broad political community behind itself

One of the most important men who could be heard at the radical Whigs' favourite coffeehouse was Henry Neville, the `father figure of the Grecian Club'. 75

Neville's death in 1694 meant that his personal influence on the emerging Harley-

Foley opposition was limited but his influence on Country ideology was nevertheless significant, since he carried on what J.G. A. Pocock has termed the "`neo- 76 Harringtonian" style in English political discourse'. In the rather thin guise of a utopian narrative, James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) had established the most influential model for an English popular republic. Echoing the

Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli, Harrington viewed the bearing of arms as `the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his 77 participation in politics as a responsible moral being', Moreover, the right to bear arms derived directly from the possession of property, which in turn guaranteed the individual's independence. Harrington's armed English `freeholder' was modelled on the `classical citizen', whose independent political personality made him the natural exponent of Greco-Roman civic virtue, a concept that was characterised by a strong 78 sense of freedom and political innocence. Importantly, in his discussion of the history of governments, Harrington recognised that England's monarchy was a

Polybian or mixed form of government in which monarchy, aristocracy and 79 democracy combined to balance one another. The idea of a balanced constitution, the so-called `coordination principle', had been in the mainstream of political thought ever since Charles I had inadvertently given rise to the notion in his `Answer to the

74 Champion, Republican Learning, 100 75 Worden, `Introduction', 40; also see Downie, Harley, 22 76 J.G. A. Pocock, `Introduction', J. Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics (Cambridge, 2003), xi 77 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 386,390 78 [bid, 385-6,407 79 Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 47-53

37 80 Nineteen Propositions of June, 1642'. With this document the king's advisers had intended to naturalise into English political rhetoric the theory of the mixed constitution in order to remind his subjects of the importance of due subordination.

Nothing, they argued, but the `balance of the three estates stood between them and anarchy' and even the slightest form of insubordination could overthrow the highly "' fragile governmental system. However, the theory did little to reinforce the king's political powers but instead effectively opened the `door to Machiavellian analysis', thus enabling political commentators to represent the government of England,

`without ceasing to manifest the element monarchy, [asj 82 of ... a classical republic'. By the time he wrote Oceana, of course, Harrington had witnessed the regicide of

Charles I and the subsequent demise of the English monarchy, which inevitably shaped his view of monarchical governments. He argued that in theory a mixed constitution, if it maintained the balance between the three estates at all times, had the 83 potential to achieve `the full perfection of government'. However, in reality mixed monarchies, in particular the `Gothic' or feudal type, were `no other than a wrestling match' between the estates and consequently, they were an inherently unstable form 84 of government. The recent fall of the English monarchy had only served to reinforce this point.

Neville, who had been a close associate of Harrington's, was not the first author to interpret English politics in a neo-Harringtionian manner, but his tract Plato

Redivivus (1680) may be taken as the `culmination of the first attempt to restate 85 Harringtonian doctrine in a form appropriate to the realities of the Restoration'.

Neville's arguably most important contribution to Country ideology was his neo-

Harringtonian interpretation of English history and the `remarkable prototype of an incorruptible country gentleman' which his Plato Redivivus established for the radical

80 C. C. Weston & J.R. Greenberg, Subjects and Sovereigns. The Grand Controversy over Legal Sovereignty in Stuart England (Cambridge, 1981), 3; Dickinson, 64 81 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 364-5 82 Ibid, 363 83 Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 32 84 Ibid, 53; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 387 85 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 406; Pocock cites the anonymous pamphlet A Letter Quality from a Person of to his Friend in the Country (1675) as the first neo- Harringtonian publication.

38 86 Whig cause. The political aphorism which both Harrington and Neville made the cornerstone of their political thought was the idea that `empire is founded in 87 property'. Only a man who owned a part of the nation could be expected to want to defend its liberties. Originally, property had been mainly in the hands of the nobility, who, with the help of their tenants or `vassals', had defended the liberties of the nation. The last two centuries, however, had seen the decay of this structure, as the barons sold off much of their land to their vassals, which in turn meant that a significant amount of political power was transferred from the nobility to the 88 commoners. It is, in fact, because of this `democratisation' of power that Neville believes that Harrington's principles, which were originally designed to prove that

`England was not capable of any other government than a democracy', could validly be applied to the kingdom's mixed constitution in order to restore it to its former 89 glory. Yet, to be able to make this assertion, Neville had to undertake a major revision of Harrington's interpretation of English history. He agreed with Harrington that the decay of the power of the nobility, whose traditional role it was to act as an intermediary between king and Commons, and who were the `bulwarks of the " government', had resulted in the destruction of the mixed or balanced constitution.

However, unlike Harrington, who considered the history of England's mixed monarchy to be a `record of instability and successive degenerations' and who saw his republic as rising from the ruins of the balanced constitution, Neville viewed the `Gothic balance' as an ideal and importantly, maintainable, form of government. A country such as Sweden, which had remained `in point of constitution, and property, exactly as it did anciently', demonstrated this and as a result it was a `well-governed kingdom'. 9'

86 Worden, `Introduction', 41 87 Henry Neville, Plato Redivivus (1680), in C. Robbins (ed), Two English Republican Tracts (Cambridge, 1969), 87; Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 11 88 Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 20,44,55-56; Neville, Plato Redivivus, 88, 145. See Chapter II, 88-90, for a more detailed discussion of the neo-Harringtonian interpretation of English history. 89 Neville, Plato Redivivus, 69 90 Ibid, 133 91 Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 53,61; Neville, Plato Redivivus, 136

39 The key to understanding the decay of the mixed constitution was not so much an inherent instability within the governmental triad, Neville asserted, as the manner in which individuals undertook their governmental duties. Indeed, personal morality was the very reason why the original Gothic constitution had been able to function so admirably: `our ancestors were a plain-hearted, well-meaning people, without court- 92 reserves, or tricks'. Modem politics, however, had fallen prey to a beast that was destroy now threatening to the entire constitution - `corruption'. The decay of England's government had been accompanied by the emergence of a new species of politician, the `court-parasite', whose primary aim it was to satisfy his own private 93 interests, instead of protecting the public good. The shift of property `from the few to the many' had resulted in a large number of the nation's representatives drawing comparatively small annual incomes from their land. This had made previously honourable `counsellors' susceptible to the `tricks and malice of men', that is to say,

`bribes, gratuities and fees as they usually take for the dispatch of all matters before them. '94 Of course, once a representative had accepted court favours, he no longer possessedHarrington's basic requirement for a well-functioning government, political independence, but was obliged to support the royal prerogative to the point where the balance between the three governmental estates all but disappeared and the king became the sole ruling power. The political solution to the problem, Neville asserted, was to limit the prerogatives of the king but this posed an almost insurmountable further difficulty, since corrupt courtiers would `think it hard that the king should be so bounded and limited both in power and revenue, that he shall have no means to exercise his liberality towards them'. Consequently, the king's favourites will `use their interest and eloquence, in both houses, to dissuade them from pressing so hard 95 upon a prince'.

The most visible effect of court corruption was a standing army. Harrington himself had not addressed this issue in depth, although he did describe standing forces as `something politically undesirable', comparing them to the `guards used by ancient

92 Neville, Plato Redivivus, 121 93 IbId, 145 94 Ibid, 144,146 95 Ibid, 170

40 96 tyrants to establish unlawful power'. By the middle of the 1670s, however, the

standing army had become `common coinage of English political debate' and was coupled regularly with corruption and opposed to the ideal of the militia. 97 Standing forces were the symbol of the destruction of the balanced constitution: the sword had been transferred from the hands of the freeholder, who had a vested interest in protecting the freedom of the nation, into those of the monarch, whose unchecked will now took irresistible priority. Again, corruption was at the heart of the problem. The decay of the aristocracy's power meant that it could no longer raise military forces to defend its own and the nation's freedom. This responsibility had been wholly transferred to the monarch, who now had to rely on hired professional soldiers to defend the country. These soldiers were willingly financed by corrupt government ministers, who were intent on retaining royal `bribes, gratuities and fees'. Thus, the king not only controlled parliament, originally the guard of the nation's freedom, but he also had at his hands the tool of a tyrant. Standing armies, therefore, constantly 98 posed the sinister threat of military rule by an absolute government. Following

Harrington, Neville did not make great play of what was to become the bogey of Country ideology. Yet, his Plato Redivivus was clearly informed by the undesirable effects radical Whiggery associated with a professional soldiery: he discussed the `ill consequences of a standing army' in the context of the `mercenary' military forces of

Roman and Greek tyrants, the `slavery' inflicted on Scotland by Charles I and his attempt to intimidate the Long Parliament by using an army, the need to maintain unlawful governments by force, and the subversive nature of Cromwell's `New Model Army'. 99

If the `breach and ruin' of England's balanced constitution was to be avoided, the `disease' called corruption which had infected the body politic needed to be

96 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 411; Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 31,45 97 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 410 98 J.G. A. Pocock, `Machiavelli, Harrington and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth Century, ' in J.G. A. Pocock ed. Politics, Language & Time. Essays on Political Thought & History (London, 1972), 120-22,125-26; idem, Machiavellian Moment, 415-7; Dickinson, 103-4 99 Neville, Plato Redivivus, 109,143,149,165,171,177-179

41 100 remedied quickly and effectively. The moral and political behaviour of the members of the two Houses had to return to the classical concept of civic virtue. This is where Neville's second major contribution to Country ideology comes into focus: his `English Gentleman' represented a model `senator', who advocated the `great generosity and self-denial of the [Athenian] nobility; who sacrificed their own interest to the preservation of their country' and condemned court `sycophants' and `wicked' 101 counsellors. His detailed knowledge of English and European history and his, in neo-Harringtonian eyes, excellent analysis of ancient and modern governments enables him to demonstrate the advantages of the democratic structure of frequently elected `senates', to argue for a reduction of the king's prerogatives, to highlight the

`misspending of public monies' and the threat posed by a standing army, and to insist 102 on the necessity of a complete renewal of the corrupted administration. A true counsellor, the reader learns, would have `abilities and integrity enough to discover to

[the king] the disease of his government, and the remedy'. 103Neville's English

Gentleman certainly matched this description.

Bearing in mind Neville's elevated position within the Grecian coffeehouse group, it is perhaps not surprising to find that the Country party's campaign in ' 04 Parliament against standing forces had a distinctly neo-Harringtonian flavour. Lord

Ashley and his friends hoped that MPs would model themselves on Roman senators and resist the `temptations of fear and favour' and rigorously subordinate `private to 105 public interest'. In one of his disbandment speeches in the Commons, Harley followed Neville's neo-Harringtonian historiography by emphasising the fact that 106 `Caesar enslaved Rome by his Army'. Similarly, the Country Whig MP Sir Richard 107 Cocks repeatedly turned to Roman history to illustrate his arguments. Indeed, as

100 Ibid, 76,81-82 101 [bid, 96,123 102 Ibid, 102-3,122-3,171-2,175,183-4,191-7 103 Ibid, 148 104 Downie, Harley, 22 105 Worden, `Introduction', 46 106 Hayton, `Debates', 383 107 Cocks', Hayton, `Sir Richard 228. The fact that Cocks was not actually a member of Whigs the group of who met at the Grecian Tavern may perhaps be viewed as

42 one historian has suggested, `the most pervasive personal influence on Cock's thinking may well have been that of Neville, especially in his call for a "reformation" of constitution and of society, and in the ideal of the incorruptible country gentleman 108 fashioned in Plato Redivivus'. Moreover, old `Plato' Neville's lasting influence on the group is demonstrated by the fact that in 1698 his tract was reprinted as part of the anti-army campaign.

The literary campaign against the army bore an even stronger imprint of neo-

Harringtonian sentiments, broadening into `a general denunciation of the drift of 109 whiggery under the Junto'. The first pamphlet published by the Country opposition,

Trenchard and Moyle's Argument, immediately picked up the notion of corruption by declaring that there was `no Safety in Counsellors'. ' 10 Rehearsing the usual neo-

Harrintonian sequence, the authors declared that royal `Preferments' had led the Court

Whigs to support and even promote a standing army, which, in turn, was viewed as at once a `Collateral Security' to future financial incentives and a tool which will `teach us Passive Obedience'. The Junto's behaviour was no less than `infamous Apostacy': at the Revolution these men could `hardly afford the King the Prerogative that was due to him', but the same `Gentlemen that could not with Patience hear of the King's ordinary Guards, can now discourse familiarly of twenty thousand Men to be "' maintained in times of Peace'. Other Country pamphleteers gleefully continued the theme of Court Whig apostasy. Toland, for example, asked `Who can enough lament the wretched Degeneracy of the Age we live in? ' It was almost incomprehensible, he continued, how `persons who were formerly noted for the most vigorous Assertors of their Country's Liberty' had suddenly fallen in with the `arbitrary measures of the 112 Court' and become the `most active Instruments for enslaving their Country'.

evidence for the strong influence of Neville's neo-Harringtonianism on Country Whig ideology. 108 Ibid, 229 109 Rose, 95 110 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, in "' Ibid, iv, 5 112 [John Toland], The Danger of Mercenary Parliaments (1698), 4. For further examples of the opposition's focus on court corruption see Toland, The Militia Scheme Reform 'd: Or An Easy of Furnishing England with a Constant LANDFORCE, capable to prevent or to subdue any Foreign Power; and to maintain

43 The oppositions' disgust at the Court Whigs' willingness to abandon all thoughts of `freedom' and sell the `precious Jewel Liberty' was directly related to their neo-Harringtonian interpretation of the English constitution. England's government, An Argument stated, was `a limited mix'd Monarchy' consisting of the

King and the two Houses of Parliament. Every one of the three governmental estates was of equal importance in the running of the country, since `without all their

Consents no Law can be made, nor a penny of Mony [sic] levied upon the 113 Subjects'. The `Excellence of this Government consists in the due balance of the several constituent Parts of it', the authors asserted, but a king with a standing army at his hands would destroy this balance and the country would be under the perpetual threat of tyrannical rule and slavery. As a logical consequence, Trenchard and

Moyle's argument went, a standing army during peace time would destroy the very basis of the nation and was therefore unconstitutional: `if either one of them [the three estates] should be too hard for the other two, there is an actual Dissolution of the ' 4 Constitution'. If `we look through the World, we shall find in no Country, Liberty and an Army stand together', the argument ran, since only few monarchs would be able to resist utilising the power of an army against their own people. `[W]e have enough to do to guard our selves against the Power of the Court, without having an Army thrown into the Scale against us'. "s

The idea that a standing army in the hands of the king would inevitably result in tyrannical rule was present in almost every anti-army tract. Moyle, in a continuation of An Argument, insisted that the `Facility of Execution is generally the first Motives to an Attempt' and that a `Standing Army has been the never-failing Instrument of 116 enslaving a Nation'. Equally, Toland, in his edition of Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs, suggested that `Men may learn from the issue of the Cromwellian tyranny that liberty

perpetual QUIET at Home, without endangering the PUBLICK LIBERTY (1698), 8, and Walter Moyle, The Second Part ofAn Argument, Shewing, that a Standing Army is inconsistent with A Free Government, and Absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy (1697), 14 13 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 6 114 Ibid, 7 115 Ibid, 14,16 116 Moyle, Second Part ofAn Argument, 10,14

44 and a standing mercenary army are incompatible'. "' The Reverend Samuel Johnson agreed that to allow the king standing forces would be to arm him `against the "8 Constitution, and to make him the Ricketty Head of a weak and languishing Body'.

Andrew Fletcher, whose tract A Discourse ConcerningMilitias and Standing Armies gave the neo-Harringtonian reading of history its `definitive form' within the context of the controversy, asserted that `in our time most Princes of Europe are in possession of the

Sword, by standing Mercenary Forces kept up in time of Peace, and absolutely depending upon them, I say that all such Governments are changed from Monarchies 19 to Tyrannies'. Another pamphleteer was voicing anonymously what many other anti-army writers only dared to think: Suppose I grant, we have a Prince, the best, most Just and Generous that ever sate upon a Throne, doth he thereby cease to be a Man? Is not Human Nature in every King attended with Imperfections, Frailties and Corruptions? It is impossible for them... to change and follow Evil 120 counsel...?

Even William III was thus considered a potential tyrant, especially with a standing army at his disposal. However, few anti-army writers were prepared to put this thought into writing, as they felt that William, through his authority as a Protestant saviour, held an exceptional status. In order to overcome this tactical difficulty, usually pointed to tyrannical future 12' opposition propagandists a possibly monarch . Trenchard typically declared that William was a king with no vices and if he was immortal the nation could happily `abandon all thoughts of Self-preservation'. This naturally not being the case, `we ought not to intrust any Power in him, which we

117 Cited in Worden, `Introduction', 49 18 Samuel Johnson, A Confutation of a late Pamphlet Intituled A Letter Ballancing the Necessity of keeping Land-Forces in times of Peace; with the Dangers that may follow on it (1698), preface 119 Andrew Fletcher, A Discourse Concerning Militias and Standing Armies. With relation to the Past and Present Governments of Europe and of England in particular (1697), 6; Pocock, Virtue, 231. An extended edition of the pamphlet which made Fletcher's historical analysis applicable to Scotland was published in Edinburgh the following year under the title A Discourse of Government with relation to Militias. Also see Paul Henderson Scott, Andrew Fletcher and The Treaty of Union (Edinburgh, 1992), 58-9 120 Some Further Considerations about a Standing Army (1699), 3 121 Worden, `The Memoirs', 228

45 don't think proper to be continued in his Successors'. 122In a direct reference to

William's current government, Fletcher insisted that `not only that Government is

Tyrannical, which is tyrannically exercised; but all Governments are Tyrannical, which have not in their Constitution a sufficient Security against Arbitrary Power of 123 the Prince'. Aligning himself with other anti-army propagandists, Fletcher eventually paid lip-service to the current monarch, stating that a standing army will always be a threat to the nation's liberties, `tho not in this King's time, to whom we 124 owe their Preservation'.

The cornerstone of the Country opposition's anti-army campaign, then, was the perceived threat which permanent military forces posed to the balance of the three governmental estates. Here, it is important to emphasise that the concept of the balanced constitution was not, of course, the sole domain of Country Whig ideology.

The idea that the community had vested legislative sovereignty equally in the governmental estates of King, Lords, and Commons had been, as has already been noted, common currency in English political discourse since 1642 and, as Weston and

Greenberg have shown, found its conclusion in the events of 1688-9. While the term `co-ordination' was usually avoided at the Glorious Revolution, `the co-ordination principle and the closely related theory of a legal sovereignty in king, lords, and commons' underlay `the Bill of Rights, the cardinal document of the Glorious Revolution and the center-piece of the Revolution Settlement'. 125 On a general theoretical level, then, the Whigs more or less unanimously subscribed to the doctrine 126 of an equilibrium between the three estates of government. Indeed, it was this shared ideological commonplace of Whig ideology which shaped much of the Court

Whigs' efforts to counter the Country offensive.

The first of the Court supporters to respond in print to the anti-army attack was the Lord Chancellor, John Somers, who appears to have overseen the Court

122 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 9-10 123 Fletcher, Discourse Concerning Militias, 7 124 Ibid, 15 125 Ibid, 247-50,261 126 Dickinson, 80,103; also see Pocock, `English Political Ideologies', 132

46 127 propaganda campaign. Somers' main contribution to the debate over a standing army appeared within days of Trenchard and Moyle's Argument in November 1697 entitled A Letter, Ballancing the Necessity of Keeping A Land-Force in Times of

Peace: With the Dangers that May Follow on 11.128Scholarly opinions have variously described the tract as making a `strong case' for and as being `perhaps the most skilful defence of a standing army, although, as this chapter shall argue, this is a somewhat 129 misleading evaluation of Somers' pamphlet. What is true is that Somers was certainly the `most distinguished' of the pro-army campaigners, which drew 130 considerable attention to his publication. However, it is perhaps important to point out that occupying an elevated position within the government did, in fact, count for during behaviour in very little the controversy, since William's uncooperative - his figure for particular refusal to name a soldiers to be retained - made life extremely 13' difficult for his ministers. The difficulties Somers and his fellow Court ministers and propagandists had to contend with when countering anti-army propaganda are clearly visible in the Lord Chancellor's pamphlet. Unable to construct his arguments around a specific figure which had been endorsed by the king, Somers' tract not only falls short with regard to making a concrete proposal but also remains unconvincing in the context of political principles.

It was political theory, however, on which the Country's case against professional military force rested. While it was `acknowledged in the Commons as axiomatic (and without having to be explained) that a standing army threatened the liberty of the subject', the anti-army writers, as we have seen, were only too eager to 132 provide their readership with an explanation for this axiom. Importantly, the idea that a standing army was a threat to liberty had not actually been questioned by the

127 L. Schwoerer, `Chronology and Authorship of the Standing Army Tracts, 1697- 1699', Notes and Queries (1966), 382-90; Downie, Harley, 31 128 In addition to authoring this pamphlet, Somers also arranged the publication of A List of King James's Irish and Popish Forces in France, ready (when called. for: ) In Answer to an Argument against a Landforce, writ by A, B, C, D, E, FG, or to whatever has been, or ever shall be writ upon that Subject (1697). See Downie, Harley, 31 129 Horwitz, 225; Rose, 96 130 Bastian, Defoe 's Early Life, 207 131 Rose, 96-7 132 Hayton, `The "Court" interest and the party system', 58

47 Court Whigs in parliament, who `floundered about in vague arguments of 133 principle'. The MP Edward Clarke, for example, when attacking the Disbanding

Bill of 1698-9, asserted that `a standing army will enslave us, but this [is] not the 134 question'. The Court Whigs agreed, at least implicitly, with the Country opposition that a standing army would have a detrimental, even destructive, effect on the balance between the governmental powers. Clarke's remark not only showed how deeply ingrained the association of standing forces in peace time with absolutism was in

Whig ideology but demonstrated the Court Whigs' inability to challenge the anti- army writers on a theoretical level.

Indeed, Clarke's remark was in many ways a synthesis of Somers' attitude to a standing army. Somers' support for William's cause was at best lukewarm, hinting that he `must have felt some reluctance in supporting a measure which violated a traditional Whig principle and... his own convictions'. 135In his effort to counter anti- army propaganda, Somers typically never questioned the Standing Army equation.

The only strategy open to Somers was to focus `on necessity rather than theory and on international affairs rather than domestic liberties'. 136This emphasis on necessity was, in fact, a precursor of what Reed Browning has identified as the `axiomatic 137 framework' of Court Whig ideology during the reign of Queen Anne. With each additional year in power, Court Whig ideology aligned itself more closely with the 138 notion that the nature of politics was `essentially nonutopian'. The `perfect' government proposed by the Country Whigs was unattainable and as a logical consequence practical necessities rather than political ideology were held to be a legitimate foundation for political decisions. This attitude was, in fact, one of the strengths of the court Whigs. Ill-informed about international military and political

133 Childs, British army, 193 134 Hayton, `Debates', 383 135 Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 159; also see Horwitz, 249, for Somers' failure to offer convincing arguments on this point. 136 Schwoerer, `Literature', 203 137 Reed Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge & London, 1982), 176 138 Ibid. It should perhaps be remarked that this idealist/utopian and realist/nonutopian dichotomy is a recurrent theme between oppositional and governmental policies, regardless of political affiliation and historical context.

48 affairs, the anti-army writers had asserted that with the conclusion of the peace, `we 139 can never disband our Army with so much safety as at this time'. The King of

France had been so weakened, Trenchard argued, that his Kingdom is inferably impoverished and depopulated by this War; his Manufactures much impaired;... prodigious Debts contracted, and a most beneficial Trade with England lost. These things being considered, there can be little danger of their showing over much wantoness, especially for 140 som [sic] years.

Fletcher reiterated this point by stating that `Britain cannot be in any hazard from

France' because her rival was `exhausted by War'. 14'

This, however, had not actually been the case. France was, in fact, showing no

signs of disarming and, if anything, the French seemed `determined on a speedy 142 resumption of the war'. The necessity for a standing army, Somers explained, was

brought on by the continued military strength of England's continental neighbours:

`the whole World, more particularly our Neighbours, have now got into the mistaken Notion keeping Force, too Inviting, if in of up a mighty ... we may appear we are such 143 an open and unguarded Condition'. The `best Guarantee of a Peace', he insisted, `is

a good force to maintain it: And the surest way to keep all our Neighbours to an exact

Performance of Articles, is to be upon our Guard'. 144Other Court propagandists too

chose to make the issue of necessity the focus of their publications. The anonymous

author of Some Remarks upon a Late Paper thought it was `Absurd' to disband the

army when `France has 300000 Regular Troops in Pay'. 14' Echoing closely Somers'

sentiments, he continued by asserting that necessity had persuaded him to support

standing forces: `I am no more a Friend to Armies than the Author [Trenchard and

Moyle]; but the Law of Nature teaches every Man to Embrace his own Security, and

139 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 18; also see Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 181 140 John Trenchard, A Short History of Standing Armies in England (1698), 40 141 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 28 142 Baxter, William 111,366-67 143 Somers, Letter, 4 144 Ibid, 2 145 Upon late Some Remarks a Paper, Entituled, An Argument, shewing, that a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a free Government, and absolutely destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy(] 697), 7

49 146 that Point alone makes me a Friend to an Army. `Can we be so supinely negligent, '

another pro-army contributor wondered when considering the threat posed by France,

`as not to act in some proportion to avoid such an Impending [Jacobite] Storm? '

Given the state of the `present Confederacy', `a Regular Force' was `absolutely 147 necessary'. In a series of rhetorical questions the pamphlet Some Queries

concerning the Disbanding of the Army, which, incidentally, Moore ascribed to Defoe

but which has been de-attributed by Furbank and Owens, again raised the point of the

English nation finding itself between the Scilla of France and the Charibdis of 148 standing forces. Out of the `two Evils', however, it was a French invasion which 149 was a more `evident Danger' than the potential threat posed by the army. The `only

Reason, that can be giving [sic] for the keeping a Standing Force in Pay', the tenor of 150 the Court campaign rang, `is Necessity'.

In essence, then, Somers and his fellow Court propagandists considered a

standing army little more than a highly effective evil, which could secure the nation's

safety from the perpetual threat of invasion and war. In a conciliatory tone of voice Somers conceded that if `we were in the same Condition in which we and our '5' Neighbours were an Age ago, I should reject the Proposition with Horror'. A sense

of regret at the necessity of a standing force pervaded Somers' and many other pro- army pamphlets and the Lord Chancellor's closing paragraph again re-iterated the

146 ]bid, 9 147 An Argument proving That a small Number of Regulated Forces Established during the Pleasure of Parliament, cannot damage our Present Happy Establishment And That It is highly necessary in our present Circumstances to have the Matter fu' lly determined (1698), i, 5 148 J.R. Moore, `Defoe Acquisitions at the Huntington Library, ' Huntington Library Quarterly 28 (1964), 51-52; Furbank & Owens, De-Attributions, 8-9 149 Some Queries Concerning the Disbanding of the Army: Humbly offered to Public Consideration. Which may serve for an Answer to Mr. ABCDEFG's Argument (1698), 4-5; 150 The Case of a Standing Army Fairly and Impartially stated. In Answer to the late History of Standing Armies in England: And other Pamphlets writ on that Subject (1698), 19. For further examples of the pro-army argument of `necessity' see [Matthew Prior] A New Argument to an Argument against A Standing Army (1697), The Case of Disbanding the Army at Present, Briefly and Impartially Consider 'd (1698) & [George Ridpath] A (Second) Dialogue Betwixt Jack and Will, About A Standing Army (1699). 151 Somers, Letter, 4

50 notion that a standing army was the last, unfortunate resort the country had to employ to secure its safety: `I do not deny but several Inconveniences may be apprehended from a Standing Force, and therefore I should not go about to perswade you to it, if 152 the Thing did not seem indispensibly necessary to our Preservation. ' A standing army was an imperfect measure but it would be utopian to deny its necessity.

In this context, Schwoerer has asserted that the `very reluctance' with which

Somers, and, by extension, the other pro-army propagandists, recommended a 153 standing army `made the point of necessity all the more convincing'. While the emphasis on necessity may have appealed to some of the undecided backbenchers, it appears questionable just how convincing an approach of this kind would have been to a Parliament `which seemed determined to extinguish the last traces of the royal 154 authority by attacks on William's person and policies'. The Court writers simply failed to engage with the opposition on their terms. The great majority of the king's propagandists were unable to counter Country propaganda in the realm of political theory, especially on the issue of the balanced constitution. The anti-army men had produced a highly effective neo-Harringtonian interpretation of classical and English history. In particular, the cyclic nature of the story of Rome from Republic to despotism which had become something of a `universal history', carried a rhetorical '55 message that was easily comprehended by the political public. Moreover, the Country writers' appropriation of ancient English history had hailed the country gentleman as the traditional, almost mythical, protector of the nation's liberties. That radical Whig historiography held a special appeal for these men, who, after all, bore the brunt of wartime taxation, appears too obvious to require further explanation.

In contrast to the anti-army writers, Court propagandists were asking the nation to continue to fund an army which had seemingly become superfluous with the arrival of peace. The Court's most forceful argument of necessity was easily countered by the radical Whigs, who, exploiting the general ignorance of the state of international affairs, claimed that the supposed on-going need for standing forces did not derive

152 Ibid, 15 153 Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 178 iM Baxter, William III, 370 155 Pocock, `Introduction', Commonwealth of Oceana, xviii

51 from the potential threat of a French invasion, but was little more than a smokescreen for more sinister Court intentions: the corrupt Whig Junto and its apostate followers were attempting to manoeuvre the nation into absolutism and slavery. Moreover, any military threat, the opposition argued, could be dealt with by the militia, which was far cheaper to run than professional forces and, more importantly, safeguarded the 156 nation's liberties by placing the sword in the hands of the citizen. In this context, the Court's tacit acceptance of the importance of an equilibrium between the governmental estates and their explicit acknowledgement of the threat an army posed to the balanced constitution played directly into the anti-army writers' hands. On a theoretical level, then, Somers and the majority of his fellow Court writers failed to effectively and unambiguously support and defend William's request.

The exception to this collective failure on the Court's part was, as we shall see,

Daniel Defoe, whose contributions to the controversy constantly and consistently engaged with the theoretical arguments posed by the radical Whigs. That Defoe was a keen supporter of the army comes as no surprise. His first major tract An Essay upon

Projects, published less than a year before the army question developed into a press war, contained a chapter which offered a detailed plan for an English military academy for professional soldiers, which, as Novak has highlighted, `presupposes the 157 existence of some kind of standing army'. Indeed, the entire section, Schonhorn has asserted, is a `song of praise and triumph' for the king's war effort and, more importantly, it anticipated the `future demobilization of William's trained but 158 unEnglish army'. In this sense, the Essay may be considered the `earliest document

156 The Country oppositions' ideas with regard to military organisation are discussed further below, 53-55 157 M. E. Novak, `Defoe and the Art of War', Philological Quarterly 75 (1996), 199 158 Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics, 52. Schonhorn argues that Defoe `offers reforms for militia training that were to be proposed by republican pamphleteers of the anti-army ideology', which implies a certain congruence between Defoe's and neo- Harringtonian ideas concerning the militia. This, however, is misleading. Defoe's academy was clearly intended to be operated by and to produce professional soldiers in order to constantly furnish the king with `able engineers, gunners, fire-masters, bombadiers, miners, and the like' [An Essay Upon Projects (1696), x]. The basic premise behind Defoe's academy was therefore diametrically opposed to the one underscoring the occasional and temporary militia training camps Fletcher and Toland proposed. See below, 54-55

52 "' in the Standing Army Controversy'. Significantly, Defoe's reasoning for a military academy rested on the notion that it was `necessary to be in a condition for war in time of peace', since, even though the French king `now inclines to peace', `his 160 armies are numerous and whole'. This was, of course, the cornerstone of Court

Whig rhetoric during the controversy and Defoe too drew heavily on the idea of necessity. The idea that `it seems one of the most ridiculous things in the World to be wholly Disarm'd at such a time, when all the Nations in the World have Forces in '6' Pay' ran through all three of Defoe's pamphlets on the topic. The past had demonstrated, Defoe argued, that an army was needed for the protection of the nation as well as a deterrent to England's ambitious neighbours. The French king's inclination not to `account Leagues such Sacred things as to bind him against visible

Advantage' had shown that treaties were no sufficient security against hostile action.

There was no `Guarrantee [sic] that the French shall not insult us, if he finds us 162 utterly Disarmed'.

However, the anti-army writers did not, of course, intend for the nation to be

`wholly Disarm'd'. A `Mercenary Army is fittest to invade a Country, but a Militia to defend it', the anti-army writers responded to the court Whig argument of necessity,

`because the first have Estates to get, and the latter to protect', 16' The structure of the militia envisaged by the anti-army writers closely echoed Harrington's theory: there be no danger from Army the Nobility ... can an where and chief Gentry of England are the Commanders, and the Body of it made up of the Freeholders, their Sons and Servants; unless we can conceive that the Nobility and Gentry will join in an unnatural Design to make void their 164 own Titles to their Estates and Liberties.

By placing the `Sword in the hands of the Subject', the militia secured `the Liberties of the People'. Consequently, it was the `chief part of the Constitution of any free 165 Government'. In contrast to the army, which was repeatedly described as a

159 Novak, `Defoe and the Art of War', 199 160 Defoe, An Essay upon Projects (1697), Political & Economic Writings Vol. 8,117 16' Defoe, A Brief Reply, 89; Defoe, Some Reflections, 50; Defoe, An Argument, 66-8 162 Defoe, Some Reflections, 51 163 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 24; also see Toland Militia Reform 'd, 19 164 Ibid 165 Discourse Government, Fletcher, of 44-45, Discourse Concerning Militias, 6; also see Toland, Militia Reform 'd, 22

53 mercenary force that would turn itself `to all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness, committing all Kind of Injustice and Barbarity against poor and defenceless People', 166 the militia was `as great a School of Vertue as of military Discipline'. Therefore, a `good Militia will always preserve the publick Liberty'. 167

The anti-army writers not only considered the militia to be a superior military instrument from a political and moral but also from a technical point of view. With some naivety they `dismissed the idea that war had become so complex 168 technologically that professional soldiers were necessary'. The anti-army writers agreed that the militia was currently in a deplorable state, but with France too exhausted to make a war effort, the militia would be fully functional by the time she 169 had recovered. In any case, as an island and with the best of all sea-forces to protect 170 its shores, England was almost invincible, Therefore, even a weak militia, when 171 combined with the navy, was `sufficient to defend us'.

Just how naive the radical Whigs were with regard to the training and experience required for early modern warfare is perhaps best illustrated by Toland's proposal for a reform of the militia. In essence, Toland suggested a scheme which was in some ways akin to the modern Territorial Army. The freeholders of England and their servants were to assemble every Sunday `on some Green or Plain', where they would be instructed by the `Serjeants of the disbanded Army' to learn the `use of

Arms'. The only exception was to be in the case of `foul Weather', when it was 172 permitted that `no Duty be perform'd'. The enthusiasm of the participants, Toland expected, would be spurred by the fact that the entire community, including wives and

`single Women', would be witnessing this regular `Parochial Exercise'. In addition,

166 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 34,60; also see Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 28-29 '6' Ibid, 45 168 Schwoerer, `Literature of the Standing Army Controversy', 201; see Black, Britain as a Military Power, 46-7, for information on technological developments during the Nine Years' War. 169 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 24; Fletcher, Discourse Concerning Militias, 15; Toland, Militia Reform 'd, 12; See J.R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century (London & Toronto, 1965), Chaps. 3&4. 10 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 18; Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 61-62 171 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 61 172 Toland, Militia Reform 'd, 26-28

54 the regional militias were to `DISPUTE GAMES AND PRIZES' in the capital four times a year. On these occasions, an individual could not only show off his experience

and progress and maybe even win a prize, but the parochial forces could be `form'd into greater Bodies, and taught all that is peculiar to such' to become the 'London-

Militia'. `[B]esides the Necessity and Usefulness of all these Exercises, ' Toland asserted, `they will be extraordinary entertaining too. '13 Toland's co-propagandist

Trenchard was even more blase about the knowledge and training required for warfare. Military exercise was, according to Trenchard, hardly necessary, because a busy freeman was always going to be in a superior physical shape than a lazy mercenary soldier. Moreover, the required military skills were so basic that they could be acquired in the early days of a war: `a Standing Army in Peace will grow more effeminate by living dissolutely in Quarters, than a Militia that for most part will be exercised with hard Labour... a Standing Army in Peace will be worse than a Militia; 174 and in War a Militia will soon becom[e] a disciplin'd Army'. What he had failed to mention, however, was that, in its years of decay, the militia had actually met a similar fate to the one he was predicting for the army, as `it almost ceased to exist in the long there was no invasion 175 periods when or rebellion afoot' . While Somers, Defoe and the other lesser pro-army writers would find it difficult to destroy the equation `standing Army in peace time equals absolutism', their arguments concerning the current state of warfare represented the most effective part of their campaign. Once again, Somers exercised restraint in his approach, trying to find common ground rather than be divisive: `All agree in one Thing, That we '76 ought to maintain our Empire on the Sea with powerful Fleets'. This point was indeed easily agreed upon, because the navy had generally become a source of national pride, growing into the largest fleet in the world during the 1690s.'77

However, the "Protestant wind" which had aided William's arrival in 1688, keeping

James' fleet in the Thames estuary while blowing William's Dutch fleet down the

173 Ibid, 27,32,39-40 174 Trenchard, Short History, 42 175 Western, English Militia, 63 176 Somers, Letter, 2 177 Black, Britain as a Military Power, 79-83

55 channel, was undeniable proof that the navy was not an entirely reliable method of defence: `one would not put so great a thing, as the Safety of the Nation, to such a Hazard, depend upon a single Security that is liable to Accidents' 7" The nor when .1 author of Some Queries too doubted that even a `great Fleet' could `effectually shelter us from an Invasion', while the author of Some Remarks declared that, in the event of an invasion, the country could not be `saved by Fleets, nor Militia, but by a Standing 179 Army'. Defoe made the same point, asserting that "tis a mistake, to say we cannot be invaded if we have a Fleet, for we have been Invaded tho' we have had a good '8° Fleet; and Demonstration is beyond Argument'.

The pro-army writers' argument was potentially a very powerful one. As J.R.

Jones has shown, the notion that the largely positive experiences of the Dutch Wars demonstrated the superiority of the English Navy over the naval forces of other '8' nations was a popular contemporary misconception. In reality, English blockades off the continental coast never proved more than short-lived and while the French were able to evade squadrons blocking their bases, invasion troops could always reach peripheral coasts in the far west and north. The French had, in fact, landed `sizeable numbers of troops and large quantities of supplies' on the Irish coast between 1689-

91.182However, what Defoe and his fellow Court propagandists chose to ignore was the important point that the French government had decided to lay up their main fleet in 1694, in order to concentrate on the `guerre de course', commerce raiding by royal 183 squadrons. The threat of a French invasion had subsequently weakened drastically.

The reason for this deliberate oversight by the pro-army campaigners is easily discernible. A groundswell of opinion against English entanglement on the continent had swept through parliament and the general emphasis was increasingly on the notion that any foreign war had to be clearly in Britain's interest. This, of course, was

178 Somers, Letter, 6 179 Some Queries, 7; Some Remarks, 11 180 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 91 181 J.R. Jones, `Limitations of British sea power in the French Wars, ' in J. Black & P. Woodfine, (eds), The British Navy and the Use of Naval Power in the Eighteenth- Century (Leicester, 1988), 33-49 182 Ibid, 35,42 183 Ibid

56 exactly what many MPs believed William's foreign policy was not, especially as his ' 84 visits to the Dutch Republic became more frequent. Therefore, if the campaign in support of standing forces was to be successful, it had to be shown that the deployment of British troops to the continent was still important in the context of the nation's interests.

The Court's insistence on the notion that an invasion attempt was always likely as long as France had access to the ports on the neighbouring coast was, in fact, helped by the invasion scares of 1690,1692,1696, and 1697, which had all been 18' ignored by the anti-army lobby. If England was to be protected effectively from the

French, the only reliable measure was to keep any kind of conflict off the island.

Military action, Defoe asserted, must take place on the continent, for a good Barrier between a Kingdom and a powerful Enemy, is a thing of such Consequence, that the Dutch always thought it well worth the Charges of a War to assist the Spaniard; for thereby they kept the War from their own Borders and so do we. 186

Defoe considered it essential for the nation's safety `to beat the Enemy before he ' 87 comes to our own door'. It was England's `Business to preserve Flanders' in order to deny the French a platform for an invasion. Significantly, the defence of Flanders could only be undertaken with a standing army, since a militia could not be sent abroad. During the Nine Years' War this had been achieved with an army which, between 1694-7, numbered approximately sixty thousand soldiers, almost half of 188 which were foreign troops. Parliament's sanctioning of fewer than ten thousand soldiers made a mockery of political and military necessity.

While Somers' tone of voice was reconciliatory when he explained that the strength of the militia was an imaginary one should the fleet fail to prevent an invasion, Defoe simply scoffed at the idea of an effective militia. His response to the anti-army writers was nothing short of mockery: `the Militia are always brave

Soldiers when they have to do with Children or Fools; but what could our Militia have

184 Childs, British Army, 185 185 Ibid, 189 186 Defoe, Some Reflections, 52; also sec Defoe, A Brief Reply, 90-91 187 Defoe, An Argument, 67; Defoe, A Brief Reply, 90 188 Black, Britain as a Military Power, 46-7

57 done to the P. of O. 's old Veteran Troops, had they been willing to have opposed '89 him; truly just as much as King James did, run away'. Defoe was, of course, speaking from experience here. His first contact with the militia had come when he rode with the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. On their way to London, the rebels `had no 190 difficulty in brushing aside the militia who first opposed [their] progress'. Indeed, this first encounter with the militia ended in some of the soldiers running away, while 191 others joined Monmouth's rebellion. `Under-drilled, abysmally armed and poorly 192 officered', the militia had `impressed no one'.

Defoe's initial impression of the militia must have had an effect on his comments about it six years later, which came in his first published poem A New

Discovery of an Old Intreague: A Satyr Level 'd at Treachery and Ambition (1691). In the poem he rather humorously described the City militia, which was not unlike

Toland's `London Militia', as they had appeared during the Queen's great review in Hyde Park in 1690: And now the Queen advances to the view, Lord! How the ready Troops in order show, No more a Figure, their now dissolved Files, And one great Throng the well fix't line compiles193

In his effort to discredit the anti-army writers' campaign, Defoe created the oxymoron of an effective military unit and the militia by contrasting what could reasonably be expected from any military organisation, namely orderly troops, with the actual state of the militia, who appeared a `great Throng' of `dissolved Files'. The militia lacked all discipline and coordination and displayed its incompetence even during a show- piece: Whose ecchoing shouts when she no more can hear, Their Pot-gun Volleys charge Her Royal Ear; Whose regular noise, had she not known how tame,

189 Somers, Letter, 9; Defoe, A Brief Reply, 92 190 It should be pointed out, though, that other sections of the militia did force Monmouth into various diversions on his way to London, eventually undermining the entire rebellion. See Western, English Militia, 54 19' Western, English Militia, 54-6 192 John Childs, Armies and warfare in Europe, 1648-1789 (Manchester, 1982), 59 193 Daniel Defoe, A New Discovery of an Old Intreague (1691), 20-1

58 How unprepar'd, and how resolv'd they came194

These part-time soldiers were in no shape to defend the country against an invasion.

To Defoe, none other than professional soldiers could deal with the requirements of modern warfare: War is no longer an Accident, but a Trade, and they that will be any thing in it, must serve a long Apprenticeship to it: Human Wit and Industry has rais'd it to such a Perfection; and it is grown such a piece of Mannage, that it requires People to make it their whole Employment... 195

Men could not, as Fletcher and Toland had suggested, simply turn from farmers to soldiers exchanging their spades for muskets, but had to be trained to be able to cope 196 with the demands of a war: `Men must make the Terrors of the War familiar to them by Custom, before they can be brought to those Degrees of Gallantry'. 197

Indeed, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century warfare required enormous mental strength, as soldiers were subjected to `the awful battles of the age of short-range 198 weapons'. Hundreds or sometimes even thousands of discharging muskets in addition to the screaming and shouting of the soldiers would have made for a terrifying level of noise. It took a great deal of courage to face Long, straight lines of gorgeously dressed infantry marching with measured step towards their opponents, burnished muskets flashing in the halting deliver fearful sun, and then, to a volley - this was supposed to instil such terror into the waiting opposition that they would wilt and run before the ineffectual volley was actually delivered. Volleys were designed to be psychological as well as practical. Generally the theory ' 99 worked.

Whilst a vast number of infantry volleys sailed harmlessly past, approximately forty 200 per cent hit their intended targets. The injuries caused by the shots and by the pikes and swords meant that the visual images generated by eighteenth-century warfare were even worse than its audible impact. Contemporary accounts spoke of badly injured soldiers with `half their faces cut off and battlefields covered with severed

194 Ibid, 21 195 Defoe A Brief Reply, 92; Defoe, Some Reflections, 51-4 196 Fletcher, Discourse Concerning Militias, 6; Toland, Militia Reform 'd 197 Defoe, Some Reflections, 54 198 Childs, Armies and warfare, 73 199 Ibid, 123 200 Ibid

59 hands, legs, heads and various other body parts. 201 Face-to-face combat therefore

required `superior courage, proficiency and discipline in each individual soldier', 202 something which could only be achieved through regular practice.

Many of the Court propagandists echoed Defoe's concerns regarding the

militia's inadequacies. A pamphlet which had clearly been published in response to

Toland's Militia Reform 'd declared that a soldier needed to know `the face of an

Enemy, to feel the hardships of a Camp, and grow familiar with Dangers,. 203 The

author then moved on to describe a militia man preparing for "battle" in rather

sarcastic terms: Militia Soldier, without the Provocation Enemy, is ... our of an call'd out of his Bed to Arms; he puts on his Armour of Buff that never Bullet yet enter'd; his Bandaleers he fills with Gunpowder, and his Pockets with Beef, [he leaves] thus drest for the War, and fearless of Dangers, in spite 204 of Rain or Cold, his tender Wife and Children hanging at his Sleeve,..

The similarities between the picture of the ill-prepared militia man and the point

Defoe had made are self-evident: How could a militia man possibly understand what

dangers other than bad weather awaited him in war? Confronted with the real,

unknown dangers of war, would he not run away as most of the militia men facing Monmouth's rebels had done? The return of the militia man from "battle" was

described in terms of utter mockery and ridicule: `After the Fatigue of a whole Day,

the Hero returns with certain Triumph, settles himself in his arm'd Chair, and to his

listening Progeny relates the Glories of the Field'. 205 This sense of derision was

maintained by most pro-army publications. `[D]oes any Man in his Wits think, that

such a Rabble [Elizabeth's militia] could either have defended that Queen then, or

would protect us now, against Disciplined Troops? ', the author of Some Remarks

asked his readers rhetorically, while another pamphleteer ridiculed the militia as a 206 primitive `Army of Scythe and Club-Men'.

201 Black, Britain as a Military Power, viii 202 Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution. Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1988), 20 203 A Letter to a Foreigner on the Present Debates about a Standing Army (1698), 6 204 Ibid, 7

205 Ibid 206 Some Remarks, 11; Letter toA, B, C, D, E, F, etc, 36

60 Defoe and his fellow pro-army writers' assessment of the international situation and the state of late seventeenth-century warfare may have been far more realistic than that of the Country propagandists but the proposal to use a militia to defend the nation held an appeal for the landed gentry, which was not easily undermined. After all, as the proposed leaders of the militia, the country gentlemen would be in control and, more importantly, a militia was by far the cheaper option. In addition, the Court campaign coordinated by Somers `never dealt systematically' with the opposition's 207 theory of a mixed, balanced government. Defoe, in contrast, did not make the same mistake, as he met the anti-army writers' focus on the notion of a `Gothic balance' head-on.

Here, it is perhaps useful to briefly recapitulate the constitutional ideas of the radical Whigs. The anti-army opposition, especially those anti-army campaigners associated with the Grecian Tavern, readily subscribed to Neville's neo-Harringtonian interpretation of Europe's ancient history. They found a model of the perfect government in the period A. D. 400 to 1500, which had seen the introduction of a balanced constitution in Europe by the invading `Goths, Vandals, and other warlike

Nations'. 208The division of the conquered lands between the `General of the Army',

`the great Officers' and the `inferior Soldiers', whose respective titles subsequently became `King', `Barons' and `Vassals', created an important interdependence of these groups on one another: in return for the land, the Barons, or nobility, were obliged to assist their king in war, just as the Vassals were obliged to perform military services for the Barons, who allowed the `commoners' to live on their estates. Beside the mutual obligations between the parties, all three would have a vested interest in defending their country, because, in essence, they were protecting their own property. however, had further function The Barons, one significant - they acted as the main balancing power between the king and the people. If the king tried to invade the rights of the commoners, it was the nobility's responsibility to offer them protection from

207 Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 185. Schwoerer acknowledges that only `Defoe and the author of A Letter to A, B, C,D, E, F, G, etc. came to grips with the question of Gothic government' but her analysis of the two propagandists' contributions extends to less than one paragraph and is therefore necessarily superficial. 208 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 5-6

61 any unlawful royal attacks. Equally, if the Vassals attempted to harm the king, the

Barons were obliged to come to his defence. As a constitutional construct, the shared

interests of the three estates and the equilibrium between their respective powers

made for a `steady' and `free' government.

Significantly; the Gothic constitution had also made standing forces

superfluous: once the conquered lands had been parcelled out, `every Man went to

live upon his own Land; and when the Defence of the Country required an Army, the

King summoned the Barons to his Standard, who came attended with the Vassals. '209

The notion that the Gothic constitution `placed the Sword into the hands of the

Subject, because the Vassals depended more immediately on the Barons than on the

King' was paramount for radical Whig theory, since it was only a nobility-led militia

which, by protecting the nation from `the Encroachments of the Crown', `effectually 210 secured the freedom of those Governments'. The radical Whig practice of

associating royal control of the military with absolute governments was readily

discernable in all of the anti-army publications. Typically, Fletcher, in the above

quotation, viewed the monarch's power as the greatest threat to the Gothic balance.

While Somers and other court supporters had at least implicitly acknowledged a

correlation between a standing army controlled by the monarch and tyrannical rule,

Defoe rejected the idea entirely: `[T]here are ways for a King to tyrannize without a

standing Army, ' Defoe insisted, `if he be so resolv'd'. A standing army was a military

tool which could be used in any kind of capacity. It was the character and intentions

of the monarch which determined the nature of the rule, Defoe argued, since the

`Mischief does not lie in an Army, but in the Tyrant'. 211Standing forces may well be

used to reinforce `despotical Power', while at the same time `there may be ways to 212 prevent it with an Army'. Historical examples such as the reign of Henry VIII,

who, `without the help of a Standing Army', `Govern'd this Nation with as absolute a

despotical Power' as any tyrant, demonstrated beyond question that it was not a

209 Fletcher, Discourse Concerning Militias, 6 210 Government, Fletcher, Discourse on 7-9; for a similar view see Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 2-4 211 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 87 212 Defoe, Some Reflections, 43

62 213 standing army which posed a threat to the English constitution. Indeed, Defoe began his attack on radical Whig historiography by asserting that the origins of tyranny lay with the Barons, not the monarch. The anti-army campaigners, he 214 claimed, had `not been faithful Historians'. According to Trenchard and Moyle,

`the Wisdom of our Ancestors' had created a `middle State, viz. of Nobility, whose

Interest it is to trim this Boat of our Commonwealth, and to screen the People against

Insults of the Prince, and the Prince against the Popularity of the Commons'. 215Defoe interpreted ancient history rather differently. Instead of protecting the constitution, the

Barons had established an `intollerable' tyranny over their Vassals: `the Misery and

Slavery of the Common People [was] insupportable, their Blood and Labour was at Will the Lord' 216The Gothic balance in fact, based the absolute of . was, on a system of absolute rule, since the `Barons took care to maintain their own Tyranny' in order to `prevent the Kings Tyrannizing over them'. Therefore, the ancient constitution which had been idealised by the radical Whigs `was but exchanging one Tyrant for 217 Three hundred'. It was not until the Vassals `obtain'd Priviledges of their own, and oblig'd the King and the Barons to accept of an Equilibrium' that a true balance between the governmental estates was established. It was this `Due Balance' between a strong popular element and the monarch which underscored the English constitution Defoe it was `much than the Gothick Model and, asserted, nobler.. . old of 218 Government'. Interestingly, Defoe's view of the ideal government appears to have been closer to Harrington's than that of the neo-Harringtonians. Harrington too had highlighted the `vast effusion of blood' of the vassalage caused by perpetually quarrelling lords, concluding that `monarchy by a nobility is no perfect government'.

Only a perfectly balanced popular government which involved the `senate proposing, 219 the people resolving, and the magistracy executing' could achieve this feat.

213 Ibid 214 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 87 215 Trenchard & Moyle, Argument, 2-3 216 Defoe, An Argument, 73 217 Ibid

218 Ibid; also see Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics, 59 219 Harrington, Commonwealth of Oceana, 31-32

63 Defoe was not the only Court propagandist to attack the opposition's theory of a

Gothic constitution. The other publication which engaged with the constitutional

issues raised by the Country Whigs was A Letter to A, B, CD, E, F, etc. Concerning

Their Argument About A Standing Army, published anonymously in 1698.220The

pamphlet constituted a lengthy discussion of the nature of England's government and in some respects, the author's position was remarkably close to the one occupied by

Defoe. The notion that the `constitution and English liberties were protected by any method of balance among the dismissed 221 mechanical parts of government' was . Instead, the reader learned that the `collective Body of the People, who, with a King at the Head of `em, have a fairer pretence to be the Government' than a meeting of the 222 three governmental estates. Like Defoe, then, this writer identified the people, as represented by the Commons and the executive, as represented by the monarch, as the axis on which the balanced constitution rested. There was, however, an important difference between the two men's perception of the balance of the governmental estate. While Defoe believed that the equilibrium between king and Commons was `the Foundation on which we now stand' and, because it was `the best in the World', needed to be protected from any interruption, the author of the Letter declared that the 223 balance did not need to be, and indeed never had been, rigid. In essence, the exact nature of the English government was continually being shaped and re-shaped by political expediency: The Ballance has been sometimes chiefly with the Lords, sometimes with the Commons; and, tho' the Balance of Property was never with the King; the great Merits and Reputation of some of our Kings, have placed the Ballance of Influence... chiefly in them224

The `Essential Form' of the English government, the author continued, had only been

preserved because the balance of power had been kept in `due libration, turning it

sometimes one way, and sometimes another, according to present Emergencies'. 225

220 Schwocrer also makes this point but her comments on this pamphlet comprise a mere two sentences. SeeAntiarmy Ideology, 185 221 Ibid 222 Letter to A, B, C,D, E, F, etc., 2 223 Defoe, An Argument, 73 224 Letter toA, B, C,D, E, F, etc., 10 225 thid, 12

64 Importantly, in the event of military action all governments naturally `chose one who was Rex primus, of the nature of a Roman Dictator' to protect and defend their country. Because the threat of an invasion by France was still very real and because

William still displayed the `Glorious Character of Deliverer', the balance of power 226 necessarily had to be with the king.

While the author of the Letter went to great lengths to refute radical Whig historiography - he convincingly demonstrated that the anti-army campaign had actually `misinterpreted' Harrington's Oceana - his alternative explanation of the balanced constitution actually played directly into the opposition's hands. The

Letter's central argument essentially rested on the Court Whig notion of necessity: the balance of the governmental estates had to constantly adjust itself to the necessities of any given political situation in order for the constitution to survive. However, as has been shown above, the opposition writers had little difficulty in demonstrating that an army in the hands of the king was no longer necessary after the end of the war.

Beyond necessity, there was no reason why the balance of power should not now return to Parliament. This, of course, was the central argument of the anti-army campaign.

Defoe's justification for a standing army did not involve the meticulous analysis of English and European history evident in the Letter, but his pamphlets offered what may fairly be described as the most solid defence of the king's request.

Defoe's main complaint about the press war had been that the `Person of a King is no part of the Consideration', and as a consequence, while all other Court campaigners discussed William's rights and privileges with a certain amount of ambiguity and chose to focus on the notion of necessity, he unequivocally asserted the importance of 227 a strong monarch for the welfare of the nation. The past had shown that `the Reputation and Influence of the English Nation has been less ... always more or according to the Power of the Prince, to aid and assist, or to injure and offend'. A king without an army was a rather sorry symbol for the power of the nation: one had only to remember what a `ridiculous Figure' James I had made without sufficient military

226 Ibid, 14-15,25-26,31 227 Defoe, Some Reflections, 43

65 228 forces at his disposal. Again, Defoe pointed to France: `Why does the french King

keep up an Army? ', he asked, "Tis not for fear, but to increase his Glory; and for that

very reason it would be preposterous for us to be naked'. 229How, Defoe wondered,

could a proud monarchy such as England's possibly have an emasculated king at its

head? No one should forget, he explained, that ` 'tis not the King of England alone, but

the Sword of England in the Hand of the King, that gives Laws of Peace and War now 230 to Europe'. Therefore, Defoe concluded, `this Character which England now bears

in the World... can never Live... with no Force at Hand '. 231A strong monarch backed

by a strong army was absolutely necessary to deter England's enemies and to protect

the nation's national and international interests.

Moving beyond the general court Whig argument of political and military

necessity, Defoe engaged directly with the anti-army writers' assertion that an army at the hands of the king threatened the balanced constitution: But here is an author, who in the beginning of his Pamphlet says, the Safety of the Kingdom depends upon a due Balance; and at the same time tells us, our Armies, no nor our Magazins, are not to be trusted with the 232 King; is that a due Balance?

Defoe's concluding rhetorical question alluded to an issue which was of major for his justification William's importance of entitlement to a standing army - the separation of powers. Defoe equated the two Houses of Parliament with the legislative branch of the constitution, whose power to maintain or alter the nation's laws derived from the tacit consent of the people of England. In practical terms, this allowed

parliament to control fiscal policies via the imposition of taxes, thus representing `the 233 Purse in the Hands of the People'. The king, in contrast, represented the nation's

executive power and, as symbolised by the sword in his hands, he controlled the

army. This separation of powers resulted in the `Equilibrium' needed for a stable

government: `The Power of Raising Money is wholly in the Parliament, as a Balance

228 Defoe, An Argument, 68 229 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 90 230 Defoe, An Argument, 63 231 Ibid 232 Defoe, Some Reflections, 47; Defoe appears to have been unaware that Trenchard and Moyle co-authored An Argument, the pamphlet referred to here. 233 Ibid, 48; Defoe, An Argument, 73

66 234 to the Power of Raising Men, which is in the King'. Importantly, the relationship

between the king and parliament was entirely symbiotic: `the People [i. e. parliament]

cannot make Peace or War without the King, nor the King cannot raise or maintain an

Army without the People'. Time and again Defoe returned to this notion: `The Power

of making Peace or War is vested in the King: 'Tis part of his prerogative, ' he

explained, `but 'tis implicitly in the People, because their Negative as to Payment, 235 does really Influence all those Actions'. Within the realm of international politics,

however, it was the king who represented the ultimate authority with regard to

military action and in the interest of the country's safety, his decisions needed to be

supported by the entire nation: `Now if when the King makes War, [and] the Subject 236 shou'd refuse to assist him, the whole Nation would be ruin'd'. Neither did the

royal prerogative of controlling the army pose a threat to the constitution. The

opposition argument that `to limit a Prince with Laws where there is an Army, is to 237 bind Sampson with his Lockes on' was simply not valid. Should a monarch abuse

his right and use the army to establish absolutism, he would soon find that the `Power 238 of the Purse is an Equivalent to the Power of the Sword'. Without parliament's

cooperation, the king would be unable to raise the funds necessary to maintain his

army and he would consequentially be forced to dismiss this supposed tool of 239 oppression.

Defoe's next, and arguably most important, point constituted the moment at which he went beyond merely addressing the anti-army writers' objections to standing

forces to launch an outright attack on anti-army ideology, surpassing other Court

efforts in the process. The potential abuse of power, Defoe contended, was of course

not restricted to the governmental estate of the monarchy. If parliament rejected the

king's lawful request for an army, and the necessity for an army had already been

shown, it abused its power and destroyed the nation's balanced constitution. The

Country party's demand for disbandment was nothing less than an attempt to `strike at

234 Defoe, An Argument, 76 235 Ibid, 78 236 Ibid 237 Moyle, Second Part of an Argument, 9 238 Defoe, An Argument, 73-74 239 Ibid, 74-75

67 the Root' of monarchical government: wresting the sword from the king's hands,

Defoe asserted, meant 'Disbanding him [William III] as well as the Army. 24()The

`Maintainance of our Liberty', he insisted, could only be achieved `with a due respect 241 to the Honour and Safety of his Majesty'. Instead, the Country Whigs were trying to reduce William to `a Child, or a Madman' and render him `unable to perform the 242 Postulatas of his own part'. The equation was simple to Defoe: it was `of absolute necessity, that a Military Power must be made use of with a Regal Power; and as it may follow, No King, no Army, so it may as well follow, no Army, no King'. 243

Denying the king the executive power an army represented essentially meant abolishing the monarchy, as the king no longer had the ability to counterbalance the power of parliament. In the context of the anti-army writers' association of standing forces with absolutism and the court Whigs' unwillingness to contradict this sentiment, Defoe insisted on his own axiom: `sovereignty and the sword in the hands 244 of the king march hand in hand'. That this notion had been a cornerstone of Defoe's political thought from the outset is shown by his plans for an English military academy. He proposed that the establishment, and consequently the army it produced, would be firmly in the control of the king, who was to pose as the `founder' and leader. The king selected the general who was to oversee the academy, rewarded commendable service and, most importantly, represented the ultimate authority in the 245 context of the `King's Armies'. Importantly, however, the military power which was thus vested in the king did not make him absolute, since it was balanced with the fiscal power of parliament: the `Royal Academy' was `to be paid for by the Publick, and settled by a Revenue from the Crown, to be paid Yearly. '246

In conclusion, Defoe's defence of William's request for a standing army differed significantly from that of his fellow pro-army writers. In response to the anti- army opposition's claim that standing forces during peace time would destroy the

240 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 97; idem, Some Reflections, 39 241 Defoe, Some Reflections, 59 242 Defoe, Brief Reply, 97 243 Defoe, Some Reflections, 44 244 Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics, 58 245 Defoe, Essay upon Projects, 118-123 246 Ibid, 118

68 balanced constitution and inevitably result in an arbitrary monarch, the Court Whigs based exclusively their pro-army propaganda on the notion of political necessity. The

international situation, as writers like Somers claimed with some justification,

sanctioned what would otherwise be a dangerous tyrannical tool. However, as a direct left consequence, this attitude most pro-army propagandists unable to look beyond the

issue of military necessity to substantiate their support for William's request. In like contrast, Defoe, the anti-army opposition, drew extensively on constitutional

theory to provide a basis for his claim that standing forces were not only necessary in face France the of the continued threat posed, but also with regard to the notion of a balanced constitution. It was the king's executive power, as symbolised by his right to raise and control an army, which functioned as the counterbalance to the legislative power of the Houses of Parliament. Without this royal privilege, the equilibrium between the governmental estates would be destroyed and the English monarchy would cease to exist. This central aspect of Defoe's pro-army campaign is entirely from Somers' Letter, absent which makes Bastian's suggestion of a collaboration of the two men more than unlikely. Moreover, the distinctiveness of Defoe's rhetoric, in his focus particular sustained on the royal prerogative, also suggests that any potential connection with the ministry appears to have been rather loose. If Defoe's contributions to the Standing Army controversy really were the product of an imposed task, one would have expected him to take a stance much closer to that of Somers.

In addition, Defoe's pro-army rhetoric also clearly demonstrates that Childs' Standing contention that the whole Army debate was `about numbers and not about is 247 is principles' a misrepresentation. It the very fact that Defoe did engage with the principles of constitutional theory which made his contribution to the controversy arguably the most effective attack on the Country Whigs' campaign. Indeed, that

Defoe saw the army question as essentially resting on political principles can be demonstrated by his reading verse satire The True-Born Englishman in the context of the controversy. The poem, as the next chapter will show, represented his final, eclectic attack on the political theory of the radical Whigs.

247 Childs, British army, 193

69 Chapter II

`Old Britannia's Youthful Days': The True-Born Englishman and Country Whig Historiography

70 The final days of the year 1700 saw what may fairly be described as the pivotal moment of Defoe's literary activities during the reign of William III: the publication ' of his verse satire The True-Born Englishman. The poem was an instant success and became one of the first best-sellers in English literary history: some twenty-two editions, authorised and pirated, have been identified as appearing in Defoe's lifetime, a number which rose to fifty by the middle of the eighteenth-century. The generally agreed number of copies sold lies at 80,000.2 The success of The True-Born

Englishman `transformed Defoe from a relatively obscure pamphleteer to the most 3 famous poet of the moment'. Significantly, the satire was not only of `enormous value to William's cause', it also established instantly Defoe's public political identity, even in the minds of those who were little interested in politics. 4 Tellingly, from this time onwards, Defoe, when he chose to acknowledge authorship of a publication, identified himself as the `Author of The TrueBorn Englishman'. He was clearly not only proud of the commercial success of his satire but repeatedly chose to associate himself with the political values the poem celebrated; a pamphlet of 1717, for example, returned to the satire to support its ironical stance.5 In this context, it is perhaps also worthwhile to highlight that The True-Born Englishman became a standard against which his critics were able to judge him when he fell short of that character. Defoe's acknowledgement of his authorship thus cut both ways: it brought him considerable fame and established him as a target for satire.

Critical evaluations of The True-Born Englishman have predominantly commented on two aspects of the poem. Firstly, Defoe's satire has commonly been viewed as a response to the `fires of English xenophobia', which had engulfed the

F. H. Ellis has argued that, while the first references to The True-Born Englishman did not appear until January 1701, it is likely that the poem was in fact published in the preceding month. See Ellis (ed. ) Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6 (New Haven & London, 1970), 263 2 Critical Bibliography, 20; Novak, 149; Backscheider, 75 3 P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, eds, The True-Born Englishman and Other Writings (Harmondsworth, 1997), xiii 4 Ibid; Backscheider,80 5 for See Novak, 156, Defoe's feelings about his poem. Chapter V advances the notion that Defoe's rhetorical strategy in his Argument against ennobling foreigners heavily drew on his verse satire.

Ti 6 nation at the end of the seventeenth century. A representative example of this view may be found in one of the most recent scholarly accounts of The True-Born

Englishman: the poem's literary origins, the reader learns, `can be found in a number of anti-Dutch texts printed in 1700, and in particular John Tutchin's The Foreigners'. 7

Beside being a response to Tutchin's highly xenophobic poem, scholars have highlighted The True-Born Englishman's engagement with wider political and social concerns. In particular, Defoe addressed the benefits of immigration for England, the absurdity of the concept of nobility by birth in the context of growing commercialisation and social mobility, and the relationship between historical and ' genealogical evolution and political authority.

The latter point is closely linked to the second aspect of the poem which has attracted widespread attention, namely Defoe's emphasis on the contractual nature of government. Part II of The True-Born Englishman, in which Defoe exclaimed that the

`Mutual Contract' which existed between king and subjects was `dissolv'd' should the monarch `descend to Tyranny', has been viewed as the poet's attempt to legitimise the events of the Glorious Revolution and `William's spectacular intervention in the 9 English lineage'. In this context, the notion that Defoe's ideas on English constitutional order are `poetic paraphrases of sections of Locke's Two Treatises of Government' has largely been replaced by the view that the contractual tenets evident in The True-Born Englishman reflected the commonplaces of allegiance pamphlets, 10 rather than representing verifications of Locke's text. Furthermore, Defoe's theory of the English constitution and political authority, it has been claimed, `exists outside " history' because Defoe did not `seek to locate it in some glorious and distant past'.

6 Rose, 55-6 Matthew Adams, `Daniel Defoe and the Blooding of Britain. Genealogy, Gender and the Making of a National Public', British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies 27: 1 (2004), 2; for further examples of this view see Backscheider, 75; Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics, 69-70; Novak, 149; W. R. Owens `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 1,18-19,464n 8 Peter Earle, The World of Defoe (Newton Abbot, 1976), 148; Novak, 150; W. R. Owens, `Introduction', 21; Adams, `Defoe and the Blooding of Britain', 5 9 Adams, `Defoe and the Blooding of Britain', 3; also Bastian, Defoe's Early Life, 235 10 Backscheider, 76; Schonhorn, Defoe'sPolitics, 71; for views similar to Schonhorn's see Novak, 151-52, and Adams, `Defoe and the Blooding of Britain', 4 Adams, `Defoe and the Blooding of Britain `, 4

72 Instead, he offered his readers a millennial vision in which the king became a messianic conqueror of England, who had saved the country from Catholicism.

Making `absolutely no mention of the English legislature as the supreme authority in the nation', Defoe assigned political leadership to the `Moses-like' William, while parliament's function was reduced to sanctioning the contract between king and subjects and to initiating and supporting the dissolution of governments when the king '2 abused his royal authority.

Significantly, a number of critics have suggested that both The True-Born

Englishman's attack on English xenophobic sentiments and the poem's ideas on 13 political theory were informed by the Standing Army Controversy. However, the vast majority of critical accounts of this aspect of Defoe's poem are relatively limited in scope and do not move beyond rather general statements. Typically, one scholar, referring to Defoe's contract theory of government, states that the `fundamental thesis underlying Defoe's Standing Army pamphlets' is `stated, memorably, in the poem, 14 The True Born Englishman'. Unfortunately, the reader is offered no further insight into how exactly Defoe's poem engaged with the main issues of the controversy. An exception to this gap in Defoe scholarship is perhaps Pocock's brief discussion of the

True-Born Englishman. Pocock makes the important point that in his satire, Defoe attacks the neo-Harringtonian version of English history by arguing that `[l]iberty and balanced government were modern, not ancient, and based upon the emancipation of 15 the commons from feudal control'. However, Defoe's pro-army argument of the supremacy of fiscal over military power, which Pocock finds in a single couplet in

The True-Born Englishman, is viewed as largely ineffective, since it `did not of itself meet the Country objection that the very existence of a standing army corrupted parliament and lessened its ability to refuse supply, or that the power of money provided the executive with means of corruption unknown in former ages'. 16

Regrettably, Pocock too offers very little detailed commentary concerning the way in

12 Schonhorn, Defoe 's Politics, 19,70-71 13 See, for example, Schonhorn, Defoe's Politics, 69; F. N. Furbank, `Introduction', Political & Economic Writings Vol. 1,19; Owens, `Introduction', 17 14 Furbank, `Introduction', 19 15 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 433-34 16 Ibid, 434

73 which Defoe might be undermining radical Whig historiography in his celebrated poem.

The present chapter is an attempt to address this gap in the field of Defoe studies. A detailed analysis of The True-Born Englishman in the context of the

Standing Army Controversy demonstrates that Defoe's verse satire was not merely loosely anchored in the controversy and its aftermath, but did, in fact, constitute a highly specific attack on the Country opposition's campaign against the maintenance of a professional military force. Defoe's nomenclature, symbolism and iconography constantly and consistently echoed and satirically mimicked radical Whig anti-army rhetoric, which makes the discourse surrounding the king's troops the single most important context for any critical account of The True-Born Englishman. The poem, it will become apparent, represented Defoe's systematic dismantling of both the country

Whig interpretation of history and the opposition's constitutional ideas.

In one sense, the outcome of the Standing Army Controversy must have had a distinctly bitter-sweet flavour for Daniel Defoe. The campaign of the Court supporters had ended in virtual failure: while the royal proposal of the retention of standing forces was eventually sanctioned by parliament in January 1699, the supply authorised by the Commons meant that William's army had to be reduced from

87,000 soldiers at the end of the war to a military force consisting of only 7,000 " men. An army of this size was, in fact, still large enough for internal repression but 18 far too small to undertake any kind of meaningful military action against France.

Not only did the king have to suffer the indignity of having his requests for a significant standing army repeatedly brushed aside by MPs, who, for the most part, were utterly `unaware of the realities and costs of international war', he also had to 19 bear what was in essence a personal insult. Indulging in its growing xenophobia, parliament had decided to demonstrate its political power by moving that the 7,000 soldiers to be retained consisted solely of `his Majesty's natural born subjects of 2° England'. As a result of this stipulation, William was forced to disband and send

" Horwitz, 222; Rose, 97 18 Childs, British Army, 370 19 Ibid, 186 20 Cited in Horwitz, 249; also see Rose, 54-55

74 back to the Republic his beloved Dutch Blue Guards. The Commons' attack on the king did not end there. Parliament's next target was the forfeited Irish estates, of which William had, rather unwisely, granted the greatest part to his foreign favourites, such as the Earls of Portland and Albemarle. William's preferential treatment of

Dutch counsellors and generals had incensed the nation from the very beginning of the reign and, having already inflicted defeat on the king with regard to the army, parliament now decided that William's grants should be revoked. Accompanied by

`loud denunciations of the King's foreign servants', the Act of Resumptions was passed in April 1700.21 The Standing Army Controversy and its immediate aftermath had been nothing less than an `unmitigated disaster' for the Whig Junto, and with the revocation of William's land grants, it had ended in the `most humiliating episode of 22 the King's reign'.

Paradoxically however, the very success of the anti-army campaign had actually demonstrated the validity of one of Defoe's main arguments, namely that the `Power 23 of the Purse is an Equivalent to the Power of the Sword'. If anything, by forcing

William to disband the greatest part of his forces, parliament had shown irrefutably that the fiscal power it held was more than a match for the prerogatives of the king.

Indeed, despite the disappointing result, Defoe's contribution to the controversy may be described as moderately successful, at least on a personal level. His attack on anti- army sentiments, as the previous chapter has shown, certainly represented the most forceful Court response to the radical Whig opposition, and the fact that both Some

Reflections and A Brief Reply went to second editions indicates that he was making an impact as a propagandist.

The passage of the Disbandment Act might have put an end to the standing army issue in parliament but Defoe, as one critic has been pointed out, `never let it 24 die'. His initial reaction to the success of the anti-army campaign came in the ballad

An Encomium upon Parliament (1699), a highly sarcastic attack on William's fourth parliament, which sat from December 1698 to May 1699. The ballad largely echoed

2] Horwitz, 267-269; Rose, 55,99 22 Rose, 97 23 Defoe, An Argument, 74 24 Novak, 141

75 sentiments Defoe had already expressed in his pro-army pamphlets, such as the ineffectiveness of the militia, the country's ingratitude towards William and his troops, and the excessive limitations which Defoe believed had been placed on the 25 king's prerogatives. Similarly, Defoe's next publications, The Two Great Questions

Consider'd and The Two Great Questions further Consider 'd reiterated Defoe's thoughts on English foreign policy. The first tract is largely an exploration of the implications of Louis XIV's possible rejection of Charles II of Spain's will for the balance of power in Europe. However, Defoe included a number of pointed references to the nation's virtually army-less state: `since her Troops are broke', the reader was told, England has made `but a very mean Figure abroad'. 26 The sequel, issued in response to the anonymously published Remarks upon a Late Paper (1700) which accused Defoe of being a courtier and a supporter of standing armies, returns to the mould of Defoe's earlier pro-army tracts. The Two Great Questions I urther

Consider'd, published only three or four weeks prior to The True-Born Englishman in

December 1700, rehearsed all of the main arguments Defoe had employed during the controversy: the fleet and the militia were no sufficient protection against a French invasion, any military conflict ought to be kept `at a distance... by Leagues and

Confederacies', which could only be achieved if England represented a worthy ally with a strong king and an adequate army, and, in any case, `Provided it be by Consent 27 of Parliament' a standing army in peace time was `not against Law'. Moreover, Defoe included a substantial attack on the anti-army `Pamphleteering Club, who have set themselves to Blaspheme God, and Ruin their Native Country, and in Print to sow the Seeds of Misunderstanding and Distrust between the King and his People. '28 More than a year after the end of the controversy, Defoe, it seems, still found the success of the anti-army campaign difficult to digest.

25 Daniel Defoe, An Encomium upon a Parliament (1699), F. H. Ellis (ed.), Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6 (New Haven & London, 1970), 49-51 26 Daniel Defoe, The Two Great Questions Consider d (1700), Political & Economic Writings Vol. 5,33. Also see 37-39. 27 Daniel Defoe, The Two Great Questions Further Consider 'd (1700), Political & Economic Writings Vol. 5,46-48 28 Ibid, 47

76 Importantly, Defoe was not the only propagandist who was reluctant to let the army question die. While the majority of anti-army writers had turned their attention to other matters, the Reverend Samuel Johnson, a long-time opponent of standing armies with a special interest in the `history and complexities of a theory of resistance', continued to keep in the public mind the contentious issue of a 29 professional military force during peace time. Johnson, with whose writings and career Defoe appears to have been familiar, had published his first contribution to the controversy, A Confutation of a late Pamphlet, early in 1698.30 In it he reiterated many of the commonplaces of opposition rhetoric: not only was a standing army unnecessary because of the improbability of a foreign invasion, but, more significantly, it destroyed the constitution and made governments `absolute and arbitrary'. In contrast to mercenary troops, a militia was a safe and effective military 3' force for the defence of the nation. Despite the fact that the controversy had come to an end in 1699, Johnson decided to continue his the campaign by publishing The

Second Part of the Confutation of the Ballancing Letter and re-issuing his highly sarcastic 1685 pamphlet, Several Reasons for the Establishment of a Standing Army, and dissolving the Militia, in 1700.32 The standing army issue was clearly far from forgotten and at least some of the radical Whigs remained dissatisfied with the maintenance of even the smallest of professional forces.

Johnson's tracts were not only important in the sense that they helped to carry the army issue into the new century, they also represented a highly accurate reflection of contemporary xenophobic sentiments. As already mentioned, the contentious issue of the Irish estates and William's continued visits to his native Holland even after the arrival of peace had persuaded many an Englishman that the king `loved no 33 Englishman's face, nor his company'. The king's extremely anti-foreign parliament had not hesitated to voice its dislike of foreigners. Typically, a speech in the

29 Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 176 30 Defoe refers to Johnson in his first pamphlet contribution to the army debate. See Some Reflections, 51 31 Johnson, Confutation, `Preface' and 2-3 32 Schwocrer lists The Second Part of the Confutation as the final pamphlet in the controversy. See `Chronology', 390 33 Gilbert Bumet, History of His Own Time (Oxford, 1823), cited in Rose, 54

77 Commons against a bill for the naturalisation of foreigners concluded with the motion

`that the Serjeant be commanded to open the Doors, and let us first Kick the Bill out 34 of the HOUSE, and then Foreigners out of the KINGDOM'. Moreover, when the

Lords threatened to block the passage of the Act of Resumptions, members of the

Commons immediately turned to the popular bogey of foreigners: The whole nation must be exposed to misery, and all for preserving the grants of those who would beggar the kingdom to enrich themselves; who were foreigners, and had not the bowels of Englishmen, but would be contented to see this country destroyed, when they are not to get their wills of it35

A contemporary commentator observed that William's enemies saw `fit for their ends, 36 to let that prejudice go on, and increase in the minds of the people'. Johnson was certainly one of those enemies and his Confutation of a late Pamphlet had clearly been designed to exploit the increasing antipathy with which William and his foreign entourage were being viewed. The final twelve or so pages of the pamphlet represented an all-out attack on non-English inhabitants of the kingdom. One way of `diminishing the Strength of the Nation', Johnson declared, is by letting Foreigners and Aliens amongst us... [because] for every Foreigner living in England we have an English-man the less. Because they not only are a dead weight to the Nation, and cannot be relied upon for any assistance, but perhaps they may be Enemies, for who can vouch 37 for Inhabitants unknown?

Johnson's musings with regard to a potential lack of trustworthiness of people of other cultures soon developed into certainties: the experience of the American colonies had shown that it was futile to distinguish between `Friend-Indians' and `Enemy-Indians' 38 because `they all prove one', namely the latter. Johnson's bigotry largely echoed the universals of xenophobic propaganda: foreigners regularly behaved disrespectfully towards the natives, placed an additional financial burden on the country, discovered the `Secrets of the Realm to our Enemies abroad', did `ill Offices' at court, were `the

34 A Speech in the House of Commons, against the Naturalising of Foreigners (1693) F. H. Ellis (ed. ) Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6,224 35 James Vernon to the Duke of Shrewsbury, 9 April 1700, cited in Rose, 57 36 Burnet, History, 54 37 Johnson, Confutation, 22 38 Ibid, 23

78 constant Implements of Arbitrary Princes', drove up the price of land, and showed 39 little understanding of the English way of life and the English constitution. These were the reasons, Johnson claimed, that the `Wisdom of the Nation in former Ages' was `against the admission of Strangers, or suffering them to be here'. The modern

`Fetch' of the `general Naturalisation' of foreigners should cease, while the ancient practice of keeping `Strangers out of the Kingdom, or when ever they got in and encreased to any number, to expel them' ought to be reinstated. The `Barons with 40 Sword in hand', Johnson insisted, `would see it done'. His attitude remained unchanged two years later: the Second Part of the Confutation repeated almost all of the accusations Johnson had levelled at foreigners in his earlier tract. Admitting foreigners to the realm was, he maintained, `according to the sense of all Antiquity,

them our Country'. Therefore, the government, in imitation of King John, ... giving should ensure that `all Aliens of whatsoever condition they were, or Nation, shou'd 41 forthwith repair home, under the penalty of Life and Limb' Almost from the outset, . then, the press campaign against William's army had a clearly discernable undercurrent of xenophobic sentiments.

Because of the fame bestowed on the poem by Defoe's verse satire, John

Tutchin's The Foreigners remains the most frequently cited publication to illustrate contemporary anti-foreign feelings. Tutchin's tract has been said to have `furiously fanned' English xenophobia, yet the fact that The Foreigners did not prove popular 42 enough to warrant a second edition appears to somewhat undermine this assertion.

In any case, Tutchin did little more than revisit old anti-army ground in his poem.

Published shortly after the passage of the Resumptions Act in 1700, The Foreigner's highly polemical couplets issued a long series of insults aimed at the king and his

Dutch courtiers. Drawing on Old Testament imagery in the manner of Dryden, the

39 Ibid, 24-26,28,31 40 Ibid, 23-26 41 Samuel Johnson, The Second Part of the Confutation of the Ballancing Letter, Being An Occasional Discourse in Vindication ofMAGNA CHARTA (1700), in The Works Samuel of the late Reverend Mr. Johnson, sometime chaplain to the Right Honourable William Lord Russel (1710), 340 42 Rose, 55

79 Dutch aliens were accused of having `neither Blood nor Parentage' and as lacking the refinement of the natives: void of Honesty and Grace, A Boorish, rude, and an inhumane Race; From Nature's Excrement their Life is drawn, Are born in Bogs, and nourish'd up from Spawn. 43

What was worse, however, was that these creatures were taking what rightfully belonged to the English. Echoing Johnson's complaints, Tutchin likened foreigners to vicious parasites: Like Beasts of Prey they ravage all the Land, Acquire Preferments, and usurp Command: The Foreign Inmates the Housekeepers spoil, And drain the Moisture of our fruitful Soil. 44

Finally, in a thinly-veiled reference to William, Tutchin returned to one of the main arguments of the anti-army campaign: Unthinking Israel! Ah henceforth beware How you entrust this faithless Wanderer! He who another Kingdom can divide, May set your Constitution soon aside, And o'er your Liberties in Triumph ride. 45

The claim that an army in the hands of the king would inevitably result in absolute and arbitrary government had, of course, underscored virtually every opposition 46 pamphlet.

Given that most of Tutchin's concerns about foreigners had already been voiced during the anti-army campaign and that his poem did not actually represent a commercial success, it seems unlikely that The Foreigners was Defoe's main inspiration for The True-Born Englishman. For tactical reasons, fifteen years later,

Defoe may have allocated that honour to Tutchin's verse, but, as Bastian has

43 John Tutchin, The Foreigners (1700), F. H. Ellis (ed) Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6, 236 4 Ibid, 234 45 Ibid, 244 46 See Chapter 1,44-46

80 highlighted, Defoe's account of the genesis of his verse satire and the poem's 47 structure do not lend much credibility to this assertion. Tellingly, it was only the first edition of The True-Born Englishman which contained the thirty-line attack on the `Shamwhig' Tutchin, yet all subsequent editions omitted this section and ignored 48 completely both Tutchin and his poem. The notion that Defoe's attack on Tutchin was a late insertion into the first edition is supported by the improved structural coherence of later editions of the poem: the continuity of the poem's argument, as 41 Bastian has rightly highlighted, was greatly improved without the lines in question.

Another important consideration is the timing of the composition of The True-Born

Englishman: some sections of the poem were, as Ellis has shown, written as early as 50 the middle of 1699, thus pre-dating Tutchin's poem by up to six months. The publication of Defoe's verse satire may have been triggered by The Foreigners but the available evidence suggests that it was not a direct response to Tutchin's work.

Instead, The True-Born Englishman answered `the whole chorus of abuse which over a number of years had been directed at the Dutch and foreigners in general and at the King in This become the particular' .51 chorus, as shall apparent, consisted mostly of voices of the anti-army campaign.

As we have seen, both the time of conception of The True-Born Englishman in

1699 and Defoe's ostensible subject matter, English xenophobia, already provide a solid link between the poem and the Standing Army Controversy. There is, however, further external evidence which supports this association. The instant popularity of the poem and its controversial subject matter had generated a crop of indignant replies, many of which asserted that an Englishman could not have authored this vicious slander of English genealogy. `[H]ad you been English', The Female Critick typically claimed, `you had not certainly (how true soever) publish'd your own Parents to have

47 In An Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), Defoe explained that the rage Tutchin's poem had generated in him `gave birth to Trifle.. The True-Born a .1 mean Englishman'. See J.T. Boulton (ed) Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe (Cambridge, 1975), 168 48 Bastian, Defoe's Early Life, 226 49 Ibid so F. H. Ellis (ed) Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6,762 51 Bastian, Defoe 's Early Life, 226

81 52 descended of Rakes'. Defoe, another contemporary commentator asserted, was an

`unnat'ral' and monstrous cuckoo that had usurped another bird's nest and was now 53 defiling it. Interestingly, instead of the poem being assigned to Defoe, The True-

Born Englishman was attributed to the radical Whig and deist John Toland, whose

Irish origins and extreme political and religious views could readily be reconciled with an `anti-English' and indeed, unEnglish publication such as Defoe's satire- 54

Toland had, of course, been one of the main anti-army campaigners during the

Standing Army Controversy and in 1700 he was still publishing tracts which 55 promoted republican and anti-army sentiments, such as Harrington's Works. In the eyes of the public, it seems, the author of The True-Born Englishman showed `the particular Characteristic of that Rebellious, and Whining Sect', the `scandalous' Grecian Tavern cohort.

Another intriguing detail which connects The True-Born Englishman to the

Standing Army Controversy is the poem's publisher, whom William Pittis identified 56 as `Captain Darby in St.Martin'. s-Lane'. The title page of the first edition of Defoe's satire identifies neither a publisher nor a bookseller and Pittis may, of course, have derived the printer from the incorrect assumption that Toland was the author of the poem. As mentioned in the previous chapter, John Darby had been responsible for the publication of a number of anti-army tracts and was, in fact, the publisher of all of Toland's contributions to the controversy. 57 However, Defoe's introduction to the ninth edition of The True-Born Englishman, which appeared within twelve months of the first edition in 1701, bestows at least some credibility on Pittis' assertion. Here,

Defoe explained that the `Publisher of this has been News-Paper'd into Gaol' for the

52 S.M. The Female Critick: or Letters in Drollery From Ladies to their Humble Servants. With a Letter to the Author of a Satyr Call 'd, The True-Born Englishman (1701), 114 53 The Fable of the Cuckoo: Or, The Sentence on the Ill Bird that defiled his own Nest (1701), especially 11-16 54 Bastian, Defoe's Early Life, 236. Unfortunately, Bastain does not refer the reader to any publications which misattribute Defoe's poem to Toland, but an example is [William Pittis] The True-Born Englishman, Answer 'cl, Paragraph by Paragraph (1701), 49. 55 Worden, `Introduction', 20 56 Ibid, 86 57 Chapter I, 36; cf. Worden, `Introduction', 20 and Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 178

82 58 printing the poem. On a number of occasions, Darby had been ordered to appear before the secretary of state to identify the authors of his publications and one of these did, in fact, occur in 1701.59It is not clear, however, if this was for the True-Born

Englishman. Yet, if Pittis was correct, then Defoe's choice of printer is surely more than a coincidence. An association with Darby's firm situated Defoe's satire amongst a whole range of radical Whig publications, including those opposing a standing army, and added what appears to be a deliberate piece of piquancy to Defoe's attack on the Country opposition. That Darby was prepared to publish a tract which opposed the views of his other clients was not unusual: the Darbys were, as Worden has 60 highlighted, `capable of backing more than one Whig horse at once.

While the subject matter of xenophobia and the contextual aspects discussed above establish some firm connections between The True-Born Englishman and the

Standing Army Controversy, it was the actual content of Defoe's satire which offered unambiguous evidence with regard to its source of inspiration. The poem is littered with references and allusions to the controversy - some highly explicit, others more covert. Indeed, the very first sentence of the `Introduction' clearly identified the historical event which was to constitute the poem's point of departure: Speak, Satyr; for there's none can tell like thee, Whether 'tis Folly, Pride, or Knavery, That makes this discontented Land appear Less happy now in Times of Peace, than War"

It was, of course, the Nine Years' War with France, brought to an end with the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, to which Defoe was alluding in the above lines. Significantly, it was not the war itself or the peace treaty on which Defoe asked `Satyr' to comment but the events of the aftermath, the `Civil Feud' (5) which had disturbed the nation.

The Standing Army Controversy, which had produced a significant amount of

58 Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman. A Satyr (1700), Satire Vol.!, 81. All references are to this edition. 59 H. R. Plomer, A dictionary of the printers and booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 (Oxford, 1922), xx; also see Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 175 60 Worden, `Introduction', 18n 61 Defoe, True-Born Englishman, 11.1-4.Subsequent references are given in parenthesis in the text.

83 political tension inside parliament during the three years or so preceding the publication of The True Born Englishman and generated a high-profile paper war outside the two Houses, was clearly the event Defoe had chosen as the context for his satire. This is reinforced by further explicit references to the war and the controversy: line 33 mentions the cost of `Fifty Millions Stirling' which the war with France had incurred, line 200 hints at parliament's demand of the dismissal of William's Blue

Guards, line 203 states that `No Parliament his Army cou'd disband', line 674 again complains that the nation was `Harder to rule in Times of Peace than War', while line

1003 discusses the Earl of Portland's contribution to `Managing the Peace' at

Ryswick. Thus, Defoe consistently reminded his readers that the discussion surrounding William's military forces constituted an important key for the deciphering of his satire.

Defoe's early identification of the Standing Army Controversy as the central event with which The True-Born Englishman was concerned was followed immediately by a statement of the poet's political position within the controversy.

`Fools out of Favour grudge at Knaves in Place', Defoe attacked the Country opposition, `And men are always honest in Disgrace' (7-8). The phrase `Knaves in

Place' was, of course, a reference to what had become a `hardy perennial' of Country policy, namely a bill barring all officeholders, or placemen, from the Commons, the most recent of which had occurred in April 1700.62 The continued efforts of the

Country Whigs to exclude placemen from parliament was directly related to their neo-

Harringtonian interpretation of history, which held that corrupt politicians, of which placemen were the embodiment, had caused the decay of the ancient constitution and destroyed the balance between the governmental estates. As highlighted in the previous chapter, corrupt placemen had also been held responsible for the establishment of standing armies, since they were reluctant to obstruct any of the 63 king's wishes for fear of losing their place.

Importantly, Defoe's juxtaposition of `honest' with `Disgrace' strongly echoed radical Whig rhetoric. As part of their campaign against William's government, the

62 Horwitz, 137,266-67; Rose, 85,89; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 407 63 Chapter 1,40-41

84 radical Whigs had developed a preoccupation `with the behaviour not of the Crown 64 but of Members of Parliament'. Insisting on the need for a complete reformation of parliament, the opposition Whigs not only repeatedly demanded the exclusion of placemen to re-establish the independence of the two Houses, but advocated that all should `model themselves Roman 6' An the members on senators' . application of `excellent Rules and Examples of Government which the Ancients have left us',

Fletcher exclaimed typically, would soon discover the `Ambition, Avarice and

Luxury' of the corrupt courtiers, while, at the same time, it would instil political and 66 moral virtue in the public-minded individual. In the context of the vocabulary of civic virtue, the notion that `men are always honest in Disgrace' not only provided a linguistic marker with regard to the rhetorical context which informed The True-Born

Englishman, it also heralded Defoe's attack on Country Whig philosophy. Instead of taking seriously the opposition's "reform plans", Defoe ridiculed Country Whig sentiments as being little more than an example of the `Railing Spirit' (26) which was so typical of men out of office. The Country Whig ideal of the politically disinterested and morally superior representative of the people is steadily eroded through the juxtaposition of the much cited ancient example with its modern imitator, the

`Roman' Whig. Court preferment, Defoe asserted, was the real aim of the Country opposition in parliament: The Grand Contention's plainly to be seen, To get some men put out, and some put in. For this our Senators make long Harangues, And florid Members whet their polish'd Tongue. Statesmen are always sick of one Disease; And a good Pension gives them present Ease. (15-18)

By using terms such as `senator' and by referring to the classical tradition of public oratory, Defoe was, of course, once again echoing Country Whig rhetoric and, more importantly, drawing attention to their much revered Roman ideals. However, what became apparent in this context was that the behaviour of the `Roman' Whigs was

64 Worden, `Introduction', 46 65 Ibid 66 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 3-5

85 nothing like that of the ancient paragons of virtue. When, for example, Cicero famously indicted Catalina, he did so to save Rome from tyranny, rather than to win political preferment. The politicians of the Country opposition, in contrast, were simply trying to secure a `good Pension'. Their rhetoric of virtue, Defoe suggested, was merely a smokescreen for their political ambitions.

The third couplet of the above quotation, moreover, offered an interesting verbal echo of one of the foremost radical Whig philosophers, Henry Neville. As has been stated already, in Plato Redivivus Neville had appropriated Quintilian's classical ideal to produce a prototype of an incorruptible country gentleman. In a particularly lengthy speech, this `English Gentleman' lamented the moral failings of English politicians and offered an explanation as to why corruption had to remain a perpetual state for the nation: `this is certain, they [MPs] have never endeavoured a cure, though possibly they might know the disease... [because] such a reformation might not consist with the 67 merchandize they make of the prince's favour'. Neville was, of course, drawing on the well-established metaphor of the disease of corruption infecting not only the individual but the entire body politic. The cause of the disease was royal favours, the acceptance of which turned an independent senator into a dependent courtier. The cure for this corruption, in turn, was the selfless refusal of `bribes, gratuities and 68 fees'. In his efforts to subvert Country Whig ideology, Defoe adopted the same metaphor but applied some important modifications: it was the supposedly independent out-of-office (Country) statesman who became diseased with the desire for royal favour. The most obvious symptom of this disease was the `Railing Spirit', for which the `Sov'reign Balsam' (23) was the only medicine. In The True-Born Defoe had Englishman turned the table on the radical Whig opposition - ambition and avarice were no longer Court but Country diseases and Neville's poison, royal favour, became Defoe's cure.

Significantly, the xenophobic character of the anti-army campaign was, in one sense, only a marginal issue to Defoe: "Tis not at Foreigners that we repine, Wou'd

Foreigners their Perquisites resign' (11-12). The ambition, avarice and envy of the

67 Neville, Plato Redivivus, 146 68 Ibid

86 Country opposition had made foreigners a convenient target for their discontent and

resulted in unwarranted attacks on the cultural heritage and genealogy of the kingdom's alien subjects. In order to refute these unduly proud and arrogant anti- foreign slurs, Defoe asked his muse, `Satyr', to take the reader on a journey back to the origins of the English nation: To Englishmen their own beginnings show, And ask them why they slight their Neighbours so. Go Back to Elder Times, and Ages past, And Nations into long Oblivion cast To Old Britannia's Youthful Days retire, And there for TrueBorn Englishmen enquire. (43-48)

The fact that Defoe referred his readers to history to find a corrective for Country

Whig sentiments assumes particular importance here. Almost the entire anti-army 69 campaign had rested on the neo-Harringtonian model of the `Gothic balance'. The radical Whigs had found their ideal example of government in the same distant past that Defoe was now proposing to explore in an attempt to refute their reading of history. By going `back to Causes where our Follies dwell' (53), Defoe, it appears, was deliberately engaging with Country Whig historiography in order to explode the myth not only of genealogical purity but of an ideal English ancient constitution.

However, before a detailed analysis of Defoe's rhetorical strategy in The True-Born

Englishman may be undertaken, it is necessary to briefly return to the radical Whigs' neo-Harringtonian interpretation of English history.

In the context of the Standing Army controversy, arguably the most important radical Whig interpretation of English and European history was Andrew Fletcher's

Discourse Concerning Militias, published in 1697. In the following year an extended version of the pamphlet appeared under the title Discourse of Government, which contained additional sections on the history of Fletcher's native Scotland. The tracts represented the most expansive example of country Whig historiography and more importantly, they developed and expanded neo-Harringtonian historiography further 70 than anyone had yet carried it. Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that Defoe felt

69 See Chapter I, 39,44 70 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 428

87 that Fletcher's pamphlets warranted special attention. Both Defoe's An Argument and

A Brief Reply identified A Discourse Concerning Militias as one of the main to be 71 Indeed, in An Argument, publications refuted . which was published within weeks of the Discourse, Defoe extensively quoted from and paraphrased Fletcher's 72 pamphlet. Tellingly, the sections of the Discourse on which Defoe focused, including the lengthy quotation below, dealt with the origins of Gothic government. In

An Argument the purpose of answering Fletcher's notions in such a detailed manner had been to disprove the opposition's contention that the English constitution was essentially Gothic in nature. By doing this, Defoe had, in fact, offered a picture of the origins of modern government which went against customary perception, since, by

1700, Fletcher's reading of history had become the `schoolbook interpretation of the 73 end of the Middle Ages'. From the start, then, Defoe's alternative version of English history was unlikely to find many supporters, at least on its first publication. Yet, the failure of the pro-army campaign to secure a more favourable outcome for William does not seem to have deterred Defoe from returning to this topic. In The True-Born

Englishman, as we shall see, he once again picked up this thread and produced a more substantial attack on radical Whig historiography.

While the other anti-army writers only fleetingly referred to the origins of the

English constitution and rarely went beyond stating that the nation's government rested on an ancient or Gothic balance, Fletcher offered a detailed historical analysis, which began around the year A. D. 400, when the so-called Gothic government replaced the Roman empire throughout western Europe: When the Goths, Vandals, and other warlike Nations, had at different Times, and under different Leaders, overrun the Western Parts of the Roman Empire, they introduced the following I orm of Government into all the Nations they subdued. The General of the Army became King of the Conquered Country; and the Conquest being absolute, he divided the Lands amongst the great Officers of his Army, afterwards called Barons; who again parcelled out their several Territories in smaller Portions to

71 Defoe, An Argument, 64; idem, A Brief Reply, 92 72 Schwoerer, `Chronology', 386-87 73 Pocock, `English Eighteenth Century Ideology', 139

88 the inferiour Souldiers that had followed them in the Wars, and who then became Vassals, enjoying those Lands for Military Service. 74

It was the Gothic invasions and, more particularly, the division of the conquered lands

between the invaders, which had introduced the much celebrated Gothic balance to

England and the rest of Europe. The resulting Gothic constitution effortlessly

maintained a perfect equilibrium between the newly created governmental estates of

King, Lords, and Commons, because the Commons, as a militia, led by the nobility

`placed the Sword into the hands of the Subject'. This ancient balance was so stable that no further `Limitations' needed to be placed on this type of monarchy, because the inter-dependence of the three estates `effectually secured the freedom of those Governments. '75

Importantly, despite the supposed equilibrium between the governmental estates, it was the nobility whom Fletcher and his fellow radical Whigs regarded as the true defenders of freedom: `Liberty in the Monarchical Governments of Europe, 76 subsisted so long as the Militia of the Barons was on foot'. This was only possible because the `Ancient Nobility and Gentry' were `honest and brave Men, who would have died than have been the Authors Mischief ." Moreover, the Barons' rather of ... moral superiority also made the nobility a natural intermediary between the king and the commoners, maintaining the Gothic balance by, in essence, policing the behaviour of the other two estates. History, Fletcher asserted, demonstrated that `for the defence of themselves against a greater Power', both the king and the vassalage had willingly `plac'd their Trust' in the nobility the it 78 Country Whig chief and militia controlled . historiography, as Pocock has commented, invariably regarded the Barons to be the defenders of the `principles of ancient balance, virtu and liberty, even as they defended their feudal privileges. '79

However, the arrival of luxury goods in the fifteenth century, said Fletcher,

`brought a total Alteration in the way of living, upon which all Government

74 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 6-7 's Ibid, 8 76 Ibid, 45; also see Chapter 1,53 77 Moyle, Second Part o, 'An Argument, 8 'K Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 22 79 Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 429

89 "0 depends'. A `perpetual Change of the Fashions in Clothes, Equipage and 1,urniture' meant that `all Countries concurred to sink Europe into an Abyss of Pleasure'. 81 As a result of the new `expensive way of living', the Barons, whom had to bear the greatest share of the increased cost, were forced to demand of their vassals the payment of rents instead of military service. This, in turn, had significant political implications: the nobility-led militias were replaced by mercenary standing armies controlled by the Barons lost king. In other words, the their political power - Fletcher stated that `the Sword from Power of the was transferred the Subject to the King' - and the Gothic 82 balance, which had hitherto preserved national liberty, was destroyed.

What is particularly note-worthy about Fletcher's analysis of European history is the metaphor he employed to describe the demise of the Gothic form of government. Like Neville, Fletcher drew on the metaphor of disease to add polemical 83 weight to his historical analysis. The rise of luxury is compared to an `Infection' which, starting in Italy, `spread it self by degrees into the Neighbouring Nations'. The most visible symptom of this infection was the respective nations' addictions to their natural vices: `Mankind from a natural propension to Pleasure', Fletcher explained, `is always ready to chuse out every thing what may most gratify that vicious Appetite'.

It was this insatiable appetite, as we have already heard, which sank `Europe into an 84 Abyss of Pleasure'. Interestingly, joining a mercenary army, which itself had been a direct result of the disease of luxury, affected the individual in much the same way as the original `infection' had transformed the entire nation: `if before they [the officers or soldiers] were modest or sober, [they] immediately turn themselves to all manner of

Debauchery and Wickedness'. The barbaric behaviour of the soldiers, Fletcher suggested, might then spread to the rest of the population: `may it not be feared, that such bad Manners may prove contagious? And if such Manners do not fit Men to

80 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 12 81 Ibid 82 Ibid, 15 83 See Chapter 1,41 84 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 11-12

90 85 enslave a Nation, Devils only must do it. In The True-Born Englishman, Defoe, as will become apparent, appropriated the same metaphors for his own purposes.

As we have seen, Defoe's introduction contained a number of clear markers which indicated that the target of his satire was the Country Whig rhetoric that had characterised the opposition's campaign against William's army. This early section of the poem, however, rarely moves beyond a general denunciation of what Defoe considered the typical hypocrisy of office-seeking politicians. It is not until the poet turns his attention to `Elder Times, and Ages past' that this particular element of his rhetorical strategy of the text becomes apparent. The introduction's concluding lines, which diametrically opposed the `Follies' of Country Whig historiography and

Defoe's own account of Britain's `dark Original from Hell' (54), constitute the point of departure for a systematic inversion and dismantling of the notion of the halcyon days of England's Gothic past.

Fletcher's contention that standing army soldiers were the closest earthly thing to devils appears to have provided Defoe's inspiration for the format of Part I of The True-Born Englishman. Defoe did not, of course, believe that standing armies posed a threat to the nation, either in a military or a moral sense. He had, in fact, commended " the army's excellent discipline during the recent war on a number of occasions. Yet, if mercenary forces could and would not enslave the nation, then, as Fletcher had suggested, the devils must. Thus, Defoe's version of the history of ancient Europe sees Fletcher's invading Goths replaced by an all-conquering Satan, who is supported by a number of `Vicegerents and Commanders'(72). Echoing Fletcher's disease metaphor, Satan and his crew infect the mind with `Infernal Dictates' to make `a perfect Conquest of Mankind' (61,81). Interestingly, Defoe's Satan exploits what Fletcher had referred to as man's `natural propension to Pleasure': aware of the

`Genius and the Inclination' of the various countries, he cleverly `matches proper Sins for ev'ry Nation' (66). Taking an obvious swipe at Fletcher and his fellow Country Whigs, Defoe emphasised that Satan needed `no Standing-Army Government' (68) to rule tyrannically.

85 Ibid, 34 86 See Chapter 1,52-53

91 Once Defoe had established the linguistic and symbolic framework of his satire, he proceeded to offer a more detailed picture of Satan's conquest of Europe. From the outset of Part I the reader gains a sense that the poem has distinctly iconoclastic qualities, although Defoe's target does not immediately become apparent. Eight lines into this section of the poem Defoe states that Satan reigned with `a general

Aristocracy' (63) but the implications of this information do not become clear for another twenty or so lines: the `proper Sins' which conquered the nations of Europe were, in fact, members of Satan's nobility. The reader, it becomes clear, is about to witness the destruction of one of the most celebrated icons of Country Whig philosophy, namely that of the `honest and brave' Barons. Defoe's equivalent of

Fletcher's mythical nobility is a personification of the Country Whig notion of luxury:

`Pride, the First Peer' (82) rules the largest province of Europe, Spain, with Mexican gold and Peruvian silver, or, to use Fletcher's phrase, with `the Luxury of Asia and 87 America'. Thus, Defoe's version of the ancient nobility swiftly and efficiently subdues all of Europe and beyond, as the devil-peer Lust reigns over Italy,

Drunkenness over Germany, `Ungovern'd Passion' (117) over France and so on.

There was no surprise with regard to which of Defoe's hellish Barons had conquered

England: Ingratitude, a Devil of Black Renown, / Possess'd her very early for his own' (159-60). From the start of the controversy, one of Defoe's main complaints had been the blatant lack of gratitude evident in the Country opposition's `Scurrilous 88 Reflections' on William: `To me it seems one of the most impudent Actions that ever was suffered in this Age, ' Defoe protested bitterly, `that a Private Person shou'd thus attack the King, after all that he has done for the Preservation of our Liberties and 89 the Establishing of our Peace'. Satan had indeed found the appropriate devil for

England's `natural propension'.

Defoe's account of ancient European history was not, of course, merely a humorous parody of the mythical Gothic invasion and the radical Whigs' strong tendency to idealise ages past but contained an important political message: Gothic government did not, as Fletcher and the Country Whigs had suggested, bring freedom

8' Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 12 88 Defoe, A Brief Reply, 84 99 Defoe, Some Reflections, 58

92 and virtue to the nations of Europe. Rather, the period was characterised by absolute forms of government, Defoe's Satan `rules with Arbitrary Sway' (124), and a conspicuous absence of an exalted, morally superior nobility. After all, it was the self- centred Barons, as Defoe had commented in one of his pro-army pamphlets, who 90 `took care to maintain their own Tyranny' over the people. Indeed, it was in this context that an early couplet of The True-Born Englishman developed its full polemical force. The satanic cohort, Defoe had told his Country Whig readers,

`outdoes your Caesars, or your Alexanders' (73). The anti-army opposition's main contention had, of course, been that any monarch with a standing army in his hands would inevitably become a tyrant, like the dictatorial Caesar or the all-conquering

Alexander. Defoe, the quotation shows, continued to disagree: the real threat, he seemed to be suggesting, lay with the corrupt nobility.

Interestingly, critics have highlighted the Miltonic overtones evident in Defoe's version of the Gothic invasion. Backscheider, in particular, has asserted that the

`influence of Milton is not hard to see in Defoe's poem', but she does not attempt to explain why Defoe might, to use the eighteenth-century term, have dressed his 91 argument in this manner. Again, the Standing Army Controversy may hold the answer to this question. The fact that Milton was one of the seventeenth-century poets

Defoe admired and naturally attempted to imitate in his efforts to establish himself as a poet is, of course, a plausible enough explanation for the similarities between

Paradise Lost's `incestuous triumvirate' of `Satan, Sin, and Death' and The True- 92 Born Englishman's equivalent of `England, Ingratitude, and the first children'.

Indeed, as Backscheider points out, the use of devils to attack one's adversaries had 93 been a popular polemical tool in seventeenth-century political writing. This, however, neglects that the fact that Milton's political prose writings, which had variously defended the commonwealth established after Charles I's execution, had made him one of the icons of Restoration republicanism. 94Milton was alleged to have

90 Defoe, An Argument, 73 91 Backscheider, 75 92 Ibid '3 Ibid, 54 94 Robbins, Two English Republican Tracts, 40-41

93 been one of the founding members of the republican `Calves-Head' club, which, in the 1690s, was attended by the anti-army pamphleteers Johnson and Toland, as well 9s as the author of The Foreigners, John Tutchin. The influence of Milton on these radical Whigs was clearly discernable. Toland, in particular, had plagiarised Milton's political writings of the Interregnum in his anti-army publications and, as part of the

Country campaign, he had published a three volume edition entitled Millon's

Historical and Political Works in 1697, as well as a biography of the poet in the 96 following year. To frame an inversion of radical Whig historiography in the manner have insult injury of one of their most prominent voices would meant adding to -a ploy which does not seem beyond Defoe.

Once the conquest of England by the devil-peer Ingratituted is complete, Defoe, in an effort to address contemporary xenophobic sentiments, redirects his focus away from the mythical origins of European governments to an investigation of English genealogy. Not only do the Miltonic echoes subside from this point onwards but, by shifting the time-frame to the comparatively more recent historical event of the

`Invading Norman' (195), Defoe began to engage more directly with Tutchin's The

Foreigners, without ever losing sight of Fletcher's idealised picture of the ancient

Barons. Tutchin, as has already been noted, had done little more than produce an, admittedly highly polemical, versification of anti-army arguments and attitudes.

Beside propagating xenophobic and republican sentiments, Tutchin, once again reflecting radical Whig ideology, decided to end his poem with `an exhortation to the 97 English nobility to resume their ancient honours'. He urged the modern nobility: 98 `Ancient Courage reassume, And to assert your Honours once presume'. Samuel

Johnson, one of Tutchin's co-attendees of the Calves-Head Club, had envisaged that

England's ancient honour would be reclaimed by the `Barons with Sword in hand'.

Tutchin similarly challenged the nobility to use much overdue aggression against the

95 Ellis, Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6,228; Worden, `Introduction', 19 ' Worden, `Introduction', 20,26-27,71-72 97 Ellis, Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6,225 98 Tutchin, Foreigners, 246

94 foreign usurpers: `From off their Heads your ravish'd Laurels tear, / And let them know what Jewish Nobels are. '99

At the core of Tutchin's anger against foreigners, especially William's Dutch courtiers who had been rewarded for their services with peerages, land grants, or governmental positions, was the idea that their `mean Descent' undermined the natural superiority of the English nobility. Like Fletcher before him, Tutchin resorted to the metaphor of disease to illustrate his point-

A Boorish, rude, and inhumane Race; From Nature's Excrement their Life is drawn, Are born in Bogs, and nourish'd up from Spawn... These are the Vermin do our State molest; Eclipse our Glory, and disturb our Rest. 1°°

However, while Tutchin's poem was almost exclusively concerned with the greatness of the `Jewish' nobility, Fletcher had in fact extended the notion of English superiority to the entire nation: E'ngland... has a Commonalty, not only surpassing all those of that degree which the World can now boast of, but also those of all former Ages, in Courage, Honesty, good Sense, Industry, and Generosity of "Temper; in whose very Looks there are such visible Marks of a free and liberal Education; which Advantages cannot be imputed to the Climate, or to any 101 other Cause, but the Freedom of the Government under which they live

In The True-Born Englishman Defoe answered both Fletcher and Tutchin. English genealogy, he contended, demonstrated anything but purity: `A Turkish Horse can show more History, to Prove his Well-Descended Family' (227-228). Virtually every invader and visitor had left his mark on the history of the English family: `Norwegian (239), `Buccaneering Danes' (241), `French Cooks, Scotch Pirates' . Pedlars, and Italian Whores' (312), to name but a few, had all contributed to the creation of `the most Scoundrel Race that ever liv'd' (236). In an attempt to further undermine notions of English moral superiority, while at the same time emphasising the greater sexual potency of foreign invaders and immigrants, Defoe pointed out that England's `Rank

9 Ibid 10° Ibid, 236 101 Fletcher, Discourse of Government, 64-65

95 Daughters, to their Parents just, / Receiv'd all Nations with Promiscuous Lust' (344- 345). 102

Pointing his finger at Country Whig historiography, Defoe acknowledged that the early invaders `canton'd out the Country' (207) to the leading officers and, making `evr'y Soldier... a Denizen' (208), established a militia. Then, inverting the glorified image of the ancient Barons, Defoe declared the English nobility could not boast a pure lineage but did, in fact, arise from the common `Crowd of Rambling

Thieves and Drones' (237) he had already described. The idea that every English

Baron derived from `Beggars and Bastards' is a constant chorus in the second half of

Part I. At every turn, Defoe claimed that the peerage were merely

`Rascals... enrich'd'(208) and that the `True-born English Fry... Illustrates our

Nobility' (293-294). The final thought of Part I represented the exact opposite of the

Country Whigs' appeal to history, which was designed to demonstrate the `ancient' nature of the English constitution and national character: `England, Modern to the last degree, Borrows or makes her own Nobility' (404-405). Misguided claims to

`Antiquity and Honour' (408), the reader had been shown in an impressive dismantling of radical Whig historiography, had no place in contemporary politics. Citing Juvenal in the final line of The True-Born Englishman, Defoe insisted that -7i,,, 103 Personal Virtue only makes us great'. In this final twist of the knife, Defoe had transferred one of the key concepts of Country Whig ideology, civic virtue, into his ownership.

Having addressed radical Whig historiography in the first part of the poem, Part

II of Defoe's verse satire focused on the republican tendencies evident in many of the anti-army publications and, indeed, in Tutchin's The Foreigners. Typically, Tutchin had described the execution of Charles I as a `Glorious Feat' and claimed that `If

Kings are made the People to enthral, / We had much better have no King at all'. 104

That it was, in fact, the radical Whigs Defoe was targeting may be gleaned from the early lines of this section, which contained a caricature of the `Good Drunken

102 For a detailed discussion of Defoe's gendered understanding of English national identity see Adams, `Daniel Defoe and the Blooding of Britain', 9 103 Defoe uses the same notion in Part I, line 386. 104 Tutchin, Foreigners, 230,242

96 Company' (455) the English were able to offer. `Empty of all good Husbandry and

Sense' (459), the entire nation was `seldom... good-natur'd, but in Drink' (464). This behaviour, Defoe proceeded to launch his assault on the radical Whigs, was not restricted to the poor: The Sagesjoin in this great Sacrifice. The learned Men who study Aristotle, Correct him with an Explanation Bottle; Praise Epicurus rather than Lysander, And Aristippus more than Alexander (480-484)

It was, of course, during `great feasts' and hours of copious drinking in the Calves-

Head tavern that the Country Whigs `explained' and refined their ideological 105 viewpoints. Moreover, the discussion of classical Greek and Roman examples, as the anti-army campaign had demonstrated, had been an integral part of this process.

Given that the anti-army campaign rested on this "tavern" philosophy, it was wholly appropriate that in Defoe's account of these conversations, the speakers value the

Greek philosophers Epicurus and Aristippus, who `taught that pleasure was the highest good', above the two military men, Lysander and Alexander. 1°6The fact that it was during alcohol-soaked debates that these `Statesmen their weighty Politics refine' (499) had obvious consequences for the coherence and viability of their ideas:

`Th' Enlight'ning Fumes of Wine would certainly', Defoe concluded, `Assist them much When they begin to fly' (511-512).

After inviting the reader to read `Country Whig' for `Englishman', the poem returns to the theme of ingratitude, which functions as a bridging device between the licentiousness of the Country Whigs' drunken behaviour and that of their republican politics. The `unconstant Temper' (561) of the `English Drunkards' (519) had made them 'I11-natur'd and Uncivil' (539). `Resolv'd to be ungrateful and unkind' (543),

Defoe continued, they regularly failed to show due gratitude to those who had assisted them. In fact, the reverse was true: they `never love, where they accept Relief (549) and worse, `they'll abuse their Benefactors too' (553). What is particularly noticeable

pos Affairs State, See Ellis, Poems on of Vol. 6,228, for information on the politically inspired social gatherings held at the Calves-Head Tavern. 106 Satire Vol. 1,463n

97 here is the sense that the Country Whigs' ingratitude was unnatural. Instances of charity become acts of aggression in The True Born Englishman, since Englishmen

`hate to see themselves oblig'd too much' (555). The natural ties generated by another's kind actions appeared like shackles to an Englishman and, consequently, he regarded `Obligation' to be the `highest Grief (548). Unsurprisingly, `Friendship, th' abstract Union of the Mind' (572) was least understood in England.

As the poem progresses through its lines, Defoe's attack on Country Whig ideology becomes more focused. His next stops are the anti-monarchical, or republican, sentiments of the radical Whigs. English inability to show gratitude to a benefactor is transposed onto the Country Whigs' failure to honour their obligations to a government they themselves had helped to establish. After initially celebrating

William for rescuing the nation from popish slavery, the mood amongst the

`Shamwhigs' changed drastically: 107 their own Felicities, ... glutted with They soon their New Deliverer despise; Say all their Prayers back, their Joy disown, Unsing their Thanks, and pull their Trophies down (697-700).

The root cause for this "political" ingratitude was a basic flaw in the character of the

English, who were still being represented by the radical Whigs: Obedience is a Stranger in the Land: Hardly subjected to the Magistrate; For Englishmen do all Subjection hate. (619-621)

Some fifty lines later this notion is developed further: Their Governors they count such dangerous things, That 'tis their custom to affront their Kings: So jealous of the Power their King possess'd, They suffer neither Power nor Kings to rest. (666-696)

Defoe's strategy for undermining Country Whig ideology becomes increasingly more apparent here. By situating the Country Whigs' preferred format of anti-monarchical

107 Defoe used the term specifically for Tutchin (11.624).However, given that Defoe repeated the accusations he had levelled against the radical Whigs as a whole in his section on Tutchin, the label `Shamwhig' appears equally applicable to and appropriate for Tutchin's associates.

98 government in the immediate proximity of a lawless society, Defoe equates republicanism with the anarchical first state of nature. This association reappeared in several lines of Part II: Their Liberty and Property's so dear, They scorn their Laws or Governors to fear: So bugbear'd with the Name of Slavery, They can't submit to their own Liberty. (658-661)

It is important to remember that Defoe considered `Government prescrib'd by Laws,

Compacts and Agreements' to be a natural necessity, since it protected the `Publick 108 Safety'. Importantly, it was not God who `instructed man to adopt patriarchal kingship, or indeed any specific form of government', but, through the voice of 109 reason, `Nature directed Rules of Politie'. Thus, the idea that the `Mob are

Statesmen' (665) not only contradicted the dictates of nature but, since it ignore the divinely instilled voice of reason, it was an act of disobedience towards God. In The

True-Born Englishman, Defoe summed up this idea in a single line, which, incidentally, he reproduced from the preface to A Brief' Reply to the History of Standing Armies in England: `And did King Jesus reign, they'd murmur too' (672).

Unnatural and ungodly, republican governments made the people `Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel' (677) and were therefore no viable alternative to monarchy.

Defoe then highlighted a curious paradox in the radical Whigs' anti-army propaganda. The Country opposition, as we have seen, had argued that the nation's laws could never control a king with a standing army. Not even William, who had re- established the rule of law and who was, after all, the king of their own choice, ought to be trusted. Perversely, the anti-army writers were now trying to keep the very

`Magistrate in Awe' (655) who had protected the nation's liberties. In this context,

Defoe once again turned the tables on the radical Whigs by reminding them that

`Restraint from Ill is Freedom to the Wise' (662). This was, of course, exactly the idea advanced by the anti-army writers when they claimed that even a good king like

William should not be led into temptation by allowing him to maintain standing

108 Defoe argued this most extensively in Book II of Jure Divino (1706), Satire, Vol. 2, 104n. Also see Furbank's introductory comments on this book (Ibid, 6). 109 Ibid, 6,108 (Book Il, 1.198)

99 10 forces. Yet, it was not the king but Englishmen who `all Restraint despise' (663).

While William had heeded every single act for disbandment parliament had passed, the Country Whigs had never stopped to pursue the king with their `constant Clamours' (671).

Indeed, these lines represented the core of Defoe's complaints against the anti- army campaign. The present example of the country Whigs' tendency to `affront their

Kings' (667) was nothing short of treasonable behaviour. It was the failure to obey a lawful king which Defoe viewed as the downfall of the English nation, whose inhabitants `never are contented when they're well' (678). In order to circumscribe the power of kings, Defoe had included a lengthy section which reasserted the importance of the `Mutual Contract' (802) between king and subjects. Lawless, arbitrary power,

Defoe exclaimed, `makes the tyrant, and unmakes the King' (778). The `Good of subjects is the End of Kings' (774) and, if a monarch subverted the law and invaded then the `punishing Kings is Crime' (769). Moreover, the the subjects' rights, of no ... `End of Kings', if "end" is understood in the sense of "aim", Defoe argued is `To guide in War, and protect in Peace' (775).

William had done exactly that: he had led the nation in the war with France and secured a favourable outcome with the Treaty of Ryswick. Once the peace had been concluded, the king had wanted to maintain a standing force to protect the country from the very real threat of a French invasion. Why, then, had the anti-army writers attacked the king so viciously? Had the `good of subjects' which William had been pursuing actually been his literal `end'? The answer was that, while the country

Whigs subscribed to a contract theory based on the right of resistance and self- defence, they had failed to extend this right to the entire nation. Their mistake was one of scale. God had equipped humans with a brain and the faculty of reason, which taught the natural body that it had to defend itself from harm. Defoe naturally readily agreed: `No man was ever yet so void of Sense, / As to debate the Right of Self-

Defence' (828-829). Significantly, however, Defoe, unlike the anti-army writers, extended this right to the body politic: `Nor can this Right be less when National; /

Reason which governs one, should govern all' (834-835). Thus, in his capacity as

110 Sec Chapter I, 45

100 head of state, the king had the right, and indeed the duty, to protect the body politic.

Yet, what tools did a king have to stake his claim to this basic right other than a standing army? How could the king defend himself against what Defoe had called the tyranny of `Three Hundred'? The anti-army writers had in fact attempted to deny

William one of the fundamental rights of all those in society and, just as a monarch became a tyrant when he subverted the law, so subjects who denied a lawful king the right of self-defence became traitorous rebels: By Force to circumscribe our Lawful Prince, Is wilful Treason in the largest sense: And they who once rebel, most certainly Their God, and King, and former Oaths defy. (784-787)

At this point in the poem the inversion of the anti-army arguments is complete. The anti-army writers had declared a king with a standing army unconstitutional. Article

VI of the Bill of Rights, however, had established that a standing army in time of "' peace with parliamentary consent was legal. This was all Defoe and the other pro- army writers had demanded. At no point during the controversy had William attempted to over-rule or dissolve parliament, thus breaking the oath he had made to the English nation. It was not the king's attempt to retain an army sanctioned and paid for by parliament which was unconstitutional, but the Country Whigs' attempt to harass a monarch who was acting in an entirely legal fashion. It was, Defoe pointed out, the anti-army writers who were defying their original oath of allegiance and who, instead of the king, should be treated as a danger to the safety of the nation.

If, as this chapter has argued, The True-Born Englishman is first and foremost an attack on Country Whig historiography and the republican sentiments of the anti- army campaign, then the purpose of the inclusion of the satirical portrait of Sir

Charles Duncombe in Part 11 of the poem needs to be explained. The section circulated in manuscript in 1699 and Ellis has suggested that it was so important to 112 Defoe that he `built The True-Born Englishman around it'. The centrality of the section, Ellis explains, only becomes obvious in the context of the main purpose of

Defoe's verse satire, which was `nothing less than a reformation of the English

"' See Schwoerer, Antiarmy Ideology, 151 112 Ellis, Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 6,262

101 character, the cultivation of a new way of feeling and behaving. ' To this end,

Duncombe, Ellis suggests, represented the perfect case-study: he `provides an "3 example of ingratitude that is indispensable to Defoe's strategy. '

Although Ellis' reading of the section as an example of ingratitude is certainly valid, it only represents a partial account of the purpose of using Duncombe as a negative example, as shall become obvious. Defoe himself offered the reader a hint with regard to the function of the Duncombe portrait. At the end of his inversion of the myth of the ancient nobility, Defoe included the following three lines: Your Houblons, Papillons, and Lethuliers, Pass now for True-Born English Knights and Squires, And make good Senate-Members, or Lord-Mayors. (412-414)

Here, besides reiterating the fact that almost all Englishmen had foreign ancestors,

Defoe was clearly establishing a link between the nation's present knights and squires and the Country opposition's mythical Barons. These modern Barons, despite their mean ancestry, now held public office. Whether or not this `nobility' made good Lord-Mayors for Members of Parliament or the reader could decided himself - Duncombe was an example of a modern Baron.

Duncombe, Defoe suggested, was a '7rue-Born Englishman In all the Latitude / that Empty Word By Modern Acceptation 's understood (1049-1051). Indeed, the man who had risen from a lowly background to become an immensely rich goldsmith and banker, Member of Parliament, Knight of the Realm, and eventually, High-Sheriff of

London in 1699, was a perfect illustration of the nobility which the Country Whigs had promoted as the saviours of the nation. Defoe's picture of Duncombe strongly echoed that of the ancient Barons: An `Exalted Beggar' (1069) who was `first a

Knave, and then a Knight', Duncombe's ruthless ambition led him to steal `from

Kings' (1057) and pursue the `Old Game' (1145), or exploit his official position for private ends. The sense that Duncombe lacked all virtue, was thoroughly corrupt and built up his fortune at the expense of others is inescapable in Defoe's caricature. The fact that Duncombe also functions as an example of English ingratitude only reinforces this image but considered in its context, this remains merely one

113 ]bid

102 unsavoury of many aspects of the character of this `Modern Magistrate' (1046). The real value of including this section in The True Born Englishman lay in its function as a further inversion of the Country Whigs' idea of a virtuous nobility.

It has become apparent, then, that The True-Born Englishman represented

Defoe's final and eclectic attack on the Country Whig ideology which had informed the anti-army campaign of the late 1690s. In his verse satire, Defoe consistently engaged with some of the major texts published by the radical Whig opposition, most notably Fletcher's Discourse Concerning Militias, satirically inverting the imagery, symbolism and terminology employed in these tracts. The end-product was a text which represented the most thorough dismantling of the radical Whig myth of the superiority of the ancient nobility.

103 Chapter III

`The Scepter of our Minds': Religious Dissent and Jure Divino.

104 If Defoe's attention was largely taken up by arguments with fellow Whigs in the

1690s and the early days of the new century, the accession of Anne Stuart to the in throne of England 1702 and the correlated revival of High-Church and Tory

interests forced him into a sharp re-adjustment of his focus from the radical left to the

extreme right of the political spectrum. In other words, the public sphere began to be by dominated the voices of the conservative Tories rather than those of the anti- Whigs. clerical commonwealth Growing in confidence, High Church Tories not only began to restate in a highly vocal fashion conservative political theories, especially doctrines divine the of right and non-resistance, but also became preoccupied with the issue of religious dissent, which was allegedly putting the `Church in Danger'. In this context, special attention was given to the High Church bugbear of the Nonconformist practice of Occasional Conformity, which, in fact, became one of the `most bitterly contested of all the battlegrounds of the political parties' in the early eighteenth- ' century. The so-called Occasional Conformity controversy which exploded around the issue and the three Tory attempts between 1702-1704 to outlaw the practice `at once enunciated and crystallized the ideological differences' between Tones and ' Whigs on the issue.

As a Presbyterian Dissenter himself, Defoe naturally took an interest in the controversy surrounding Occasional Conformity and the legality of religious dissent and, in fact, he became one of the main and best known contributors to the debate.3

Even in the context of Furbank and Owens' revised bibliography, Defoe's contribution was still formidable: during the three years of the parliamentary struggle he over Occasional Conformity, published at least eighteen pamphlets which engaged 4 directly with the controversy. If one also takes into consideration those tracts which

Holmes, 99 2 John Flaningam, `The Occasional Conformity Controversy: Ideology and Party Politics, 1697-171 l, ' Journal of British Studies 17 (1977), 38 3 Flaningam even regards Defoe as having provided the `spark (though hardly the ignited cause) that eventually the controversy' with one of his early pamphlets. ['The Occasional Conformity Controversy', 44]. However, Holmes' account of the beginning of the controversy appears more plausible. See below, 114ff 4 Critical Bibliography, 35-67. The first pamphlet of this period was A New Test of the Church England's Loyalty (circa of June 1702), the last Party-Tyranny: or, an Occasional Bill in Miniature (circa December 1705). The best known of Defoe's

105 fleetingly only referred to the controversy and the pamphlets which largely focused on

High-Church political theory, this figure quickly rises to well over twenty pamphlets. 5 between The relationship civil and religious matters constituted, as one may glean from the above figures, one of the most important issue for Defoe during the first half

of the reign of Queen Anne.

It is important to remember that the debate surrounding religious dissent did not cease with the Lords' rejection of the third Occasional bill in 1704. Rather, the fundamental issues had the controversy raised - the legality of Nonconformity and the English exact nature of the monarchy - remained in the public domain far beyond the early years of the eighteenth century. Indeed, a year after the trial of the leading High-

Church cleric, Henry Sacheverell, a new Occasional Conformity bill was proposed and eventually passed into law by both Houses in 1711.6 Despite the fact that from

1706 Defoe's time was largely taken up by his government-sponsored campaign in favour of a union of the English and Scottish monarchies, he too returned to the issues raised by the Occasional Conformity controversy, most notably in Jure Div/no. In fact, Defoe unambiguously linked his poem with the High Church campaign by declaring that it would have `never been Publish'd' had the nation not fallen prey to the political principles of the Tories once again. 7

Scholars have taken Defoe's raison d'etre for Jure Divino as a point of departure for their evaluations of the poem and, as a result, critical accounts have largely been preoccupied with the political ideology underpinning the poem and, inevitably, focus on the seventeenth-century influences on its ideological content. 8

`Dissent' pamphlets was, of course, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), deal which, beside a good of notoriety, earned Defoe a spell in Newgate prison and drew attacks from all sides, including the Dissenters. 5 Two pamphlets are of a particular interest here: The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England (1702) and Some Remarks on the First Chapter in Dr. Davenant's Essays (1703). 6 Holmes, 99,113 Daniel Defoe, Jure Divino (1706), Satire Vol. 2,35. Future page-, and where appropriate line-, references to Jure Divino are to this edition and included in parentheses in the text. 8 See, for Paula R. Backscheider, example, `The Verse Essay, John Locke, and Defoe's Jure Divino, ' Journal of English Literary History 55: 1 (1988), 119-120; Schonhorn, Chs. Defoe 's Politics, esp. 4&5; Michael Austin, `Saul and the Social Contract:

106 Curiously, despite the fact that Defoe discussed the `Toleration of Orthodox

Churches' and `Church-Tyranny' at length in the Preface of Jure I)ivino, and in the process clearly highlighted the Occasional Conformity Controversy as an important `' context for his poem, this facet of the work has hitherto been ignored.

An exception to the above-mentioned practice of viewing Jure 1)ivino exclusively in a seventeenth-century context is an article by D. N. DeLuna, which anchors the poem in its immediate literary context. DeLuna successfully shows that Jure Divino was, in fact, `a covert response to Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702-4)' and as such it constituted a `Whig missive 10 aiming to counter the propaganda of the new High Church Tory initiative'. Defoe attacks Clarendon's `expression of a politically conservative ideology' by subverting

`its aesthetic and intellectual authority' and representing the Tories as `disruptive forces who continually threaten the nation's happily restored constitutional government'. Thus, Defoe was attacking classic Tory doctrines on a general level by satirising a specific, `politically conservative literary monument'. `[S]o crucial is this dimension of the poem', DeLuna asserts, `that missing it means misunderstanding the " nature of Defoe's literary undertaking'.

The present chapter takes DeLuna's approach one step further by arguing that the entire Occasional Conformity controversy, rather than merely Clarendon's History, is central for our understanding of Defoe's rhetorical strategy in Jure 1Divino.

The language and themes used by Defoe serve as a constant reminder of where the origins of the verse satire lay. In particular, the emphasis Defoe placed on the theme dedicated of `reason' - the poem was after all to `Lady Reason' (33) - and the link he established between reason and `liberty of conscience' directly engaged with High- Church rhetoric against Nonconformity. Jure Divino's preoccupation with the sanctity

Constructions of 1 Samuel 8-11 in Cowley's Davideis and Defoe's Jure Divino, ' Papers on Language and Literature 32: 4 (1996), 430. The most extensive study of this kind is Maximillian E. Novak, Defoe and the Nature of Man (Oxford, 1963). 9 See Jure Divino, 53-62 10 D. N. DeLuna, `Jure Divino: Defoe's "whole Volume in Folio, by Way of Answer to, and Confutation of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion", ' Philological Quarterly 75: 1 (1996), 43-7 11 Ibid, 46,51,55

107 freedom of the of the mind of every individual related the larger questions posed by

Filmer's absolutist theory to the very specific social, religious and political issue of Dissent. In the process, Defoe transcended the expediencies of eighteenth-century his party politics and offered readers a comprehensive theory for the justification of the legality of religious Nonconformity.

In an important sense, the Glorious Revolution caused more problems for the

Church of England than it resolved. The events of 1689 might have saved the established Church, and indeed the entire nation, from the popery of James 11 but, crucially, the invasion of William of Orange did not bring with it a reversal of the damage the Stuart king had inflicted on the Church. In fact, contrary to its intended purpose, the invitation given to William by the `Immortal Seven' Anglican

Archbishops asking him to intervene in English affairs represented a significant step towards the end of the Church's traditional role in English social and political matters.

In this context, it is important to remember the great extent to which the Restoration

Church had influenced almost every aspect of English life. Legal and moral issues were inevitably referred for judgement to the Anglican clergy or the Church courts: whether it was the appointment of local officials or censoring the most intimate aspects of the lives of the parishioners, it had been `impossible to ignore the influence '2 of the Church or avoid its authority'.

Neither had the Church of England been any less important in the political in sphere. The Church was, fact, widely held to be the `bearer of the nation's traditions', and Churchmen and politicians, in particular the early Tories who soon became known as the `Church party', agreed that she supplied the `religious foundation for England's "fair and beautiful constitution"' and "`the finest " government under heaven"'. With the monarch at its head, its bishops in the House law of Lords and the expressly privileging communing Anglicans, the Church was not State', but merely `the religious arm of the rather offered a `framework of loyalty and 14It the Anglican Church allegiance'. was only, Tories of all colours believed, which

12 G.V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State 1688-1730(Oxford, 1975), 3-10 13 Religion Political D. Hempton, and Culture in Britain and Ireland from the Glorious Revolution to the Decline of Empire (Cambridge, 1996), 12-13 14 Ibid, 15

108 accurately interpreted the scriptures and the patristic writings. In an age of biblical

literalism this meant that the Church was the ultimate authority with regard to the

theory and practice of governing. Under the precept that membership ought to

encompass the entire nation, the Church and its teachings offered a national way of life which provided a barrier against disorder and licentiousness and maintained the 15 social hierarchy; it was the `symbol and guarantor of a unitary state'. And, by

extension, few Anglican Tories doubted that the fate of Church and state were inextricably linked.

Just as the Tories considered the Church of England to be an important pillar of

the social and political establishment, so Churchmen were, by implication,

overwhelmingly Tory in their political views. In their self-imposed function of

religious arm of the state, the vast majority of Church divines `accepted without

hesitation their roles as servants of an absolute monarch and as advocates of an 16 authoritarian view of society'. The Anglican Church, in fact, became the `principal defending doctrines dear institution the political so to the Tories' - the divine right of kings, non-resistance and passive obedience. In the eyes of Churchmen, a belief in these doctrines represented `an affirmation of allegiance and Anglican religious " identity'. Importantly, the Tory ideology of order was applied to every strata of English society: with the obedience to absolute kings, Churchmen believed, `went

reverence and submission to parsons and squires, to fathers and employers'. '' In

return for the clergy's willingness to preach the duty of obedience, the Crown

safeguarded the privileged position of the Church. At the Restoration, the Cavalier

Parliament had re-established the Church of England as the most important institution

in the land by introducing the so-called Clarendon Code, which incorporated a range 19 of anti-nonconformist legislation. The Corporation Act (1661), for example, obliged

15 J. Walsh & S. Taylor, `Introduction: the Church and Anglicanism in the "long" ' in eighteenth century, J. Walsh, C. Haydon & S. Taylor (eds) The Church of England c. 1689-c. 1833 (Cambridge, 1993), 46. Also Hempton, Religion and Political Culture, 13. 16 Dickinson, 19 17 Clark, English Society 1688-1832: J.C. D. Ideology, social structure and political practice during the ancien regime (Cambridge, 1985), 124 18 Dickinson, 21,53 19 Harris, 40-41; also Dickinson, 19-21

109 persons holding municipal office to qualify by taking Anglican communion, while the

Conventicle Act (1664) penalised all religious meetings outside the Church. The position of the Church was further cemented in 1673 with the Test Act, which extended the Corporation Act by requiring all office holders to receive communion 20 according to Anglican rites at least once a year.

However, in 1687 James' Declaration of Indulgence turned on its head the powerful position enjoyed by the Church. Designed to advance the fortunes of

English Catholicism, the Declaration had decreed a suspension of all penal laws for the non-attendance of Anglican church services or, indeed, dissenting from the

Church altogether. In addition, the king overturned the sacramental tests which had allowed only communing Anglicans to hold municipal office and began to `purge corporations and commissions of peace, replacing Tory Anglicans with Catholics, 21 Dissenters and former Whigs'. James had thus deprived the Church of the power and control which it had been accustomed to exert over the nation. Somewhat ironically, he hoped that the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience would induce

Churchmen to support the very measures which were designed to have an `immediate 22 and catastrophic' effect on their social, religious and political status. James' hopes, however, were disappointed and he faced a concerted, largely High Church inspired,

Anglican campaign of civil disobedience in response to his vehement attacks on the 23 privileged position of the Church. In the end, the Church's act of resistance was rewarded by James' enforced removal from the kingdom. The Glorious Revolution had, it seemed, paved the way for a reassertion of Anglican supremacy.

From a political point of view the Anglican Tories could indeed view with satisfaction the outcome of the Revolution settlement. The Declaration of Rights met virtually all of the demands which the Seven Bishops had made of James. This central document of the Revolution declared as illegal the royal use of the suspending power and dispensing power, it upheld the right of subjects to petition the Crown, and it abolished the Commission for Ecclesiastical Causes, which had invested seven pro-

20 Harris, 39,41,56-57 21 lbid, 126; Rose, 2 22 Bennett, Tory Crisis, 9 23 Harris, 128

110 Catholic commissioners with sweeping disciplinary powers. 24 Similarly, the settlement in the Church represented, on paper at least, a victory for the Anglicans: a generous bill for the comprehension of Protestant Dissenters and a proposal for the abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts were overwhelmingly defeated in the

House of Lords and only the Toleration Bill went on to become law. A legal toleration had been the lure used by the Tories to win Nonconformist support against James' anti-Anglican measures and the Act of 1689 was the Dissenters' rather modest 25 reward. Just how grudgingly concessions were made is shown by the strictly limited nature of the new legislation: the Dissenters were not actually granted a state of toleration by the Toleration Act and penal statutes were only suspended rather than repealed. Moreover, the Act maintained the validity of the Test and Corporation Acts, thus still restricting full participation in civil life to communing Anglicans, and reiterated the old laws about church attendance for those who did not resort to a 26 meeting-house.

In reality, however, the Revolution settlement emerged to be little more than a paper victory for the Church. Despite its limitations, the Toleration Act did grant the

Dissenters the protection of the law and, as a consequence, Nonconformity saw a remarkable period of growth during the 1690s. In the first year alone of the Act's operation almost 1,200 temporary and permanent meeting-houses were licensed, while the Dissenting academies underwent an equally `extraordinary expansion'. 27

Churchgoing, in contrast, began to decrease steadily after the Revolution. Indeed, many members of the Church mistakenly, or perhaps deliberately, interpreted the

Toleration Act as having made church attendance voluntary and instead resorted to

24 Ibid, 137; Oxford Companion to British History, 320-21 25 Holmes, 62 26 Geoffrey Holmes, Politics, Religion and Society in England, 1679-1742 (London & Ronceverte, 1986), 191-92; Bennett, 'Tory Crisis, 11; Walsh, & Taylor, `Introduction', 16 27 Tory Crisis, 13; Holmes has Bennett, urged caution with regard to the number of new dissenting academies which were set up after the Revolution. He suggests that only ten academies were established in the twenty-year period after 1689 but that these highly institutions were successful and, significantly, operated more publicly than before (Politics, Religion and Society, 194). Also see Hayton, Commons, 464

111 28 the local alehouse. An even greater concern for the Anglicans, however, was the

Dissenters' practice of Occasional Conformity. In an effort to qualify themselves for municipal and national office, an increasing number of Dissenters began to take annual communion in an Anglican Church, thus satisfying the requirements of the Test Act. Occasional Conformity was not a new phenomenon, having in fact been practised since the Restoration, but the Nonconformists' evasion of the law in combination with the rise to power of the largely anti-clerical and pro-Dissent Whigs in the mid-1690s meant that it `took on a thoroughly sinister appearance' in the eyes 29 of Anglican Tories.

Conforming occasionally had indeed enabled the Dissenters to get a grip on many corporations and increased their political power significantly. As local

councillors, the Nonconformists were able to strongly influence parliamentary

elections in the interest of their Whig allies and perpetuate their hold on office by co-

optation. The confidence with which dissenting office holders displayed their

occasional taking of the Anglican communion added insult to High Church injury. In

a famous incident of 1697, the Presbyterian Lord Mayor of London, Sir Humphrey Edwin, demonstrated his flagrant contempt for the law by taking communion at St

Paul's, only to then attend a Dissenting service in full mayoral regalia the same 30 afternoon. By the end of the 1690s, the Dissenters had become a `political bloc of

considerable political weight' which seemed to be endangering the Church by legally, time both its theological openly and at arrogantly usurping and political authority .3,

Indicative of the eclipse of the more extreme Anglican voices was the Church's

failure to make Occasional Conformity a political issue during the 1690s. Even the

scandalous actions of the Lord Mayor, while predictably generating an outcry among Anglican Tories, did not lead to a concerted campaign against religious

Nonconformity. Tellingly, it was the Presbyterian Dissenter Defoe who wrote the 32 `first major polemic of the post-Revolution period on Occasional Conformity'. As a

28 Walsh, & Taylor, `Introduction', 17 29 Rose, 177 30 Holmes, 100; also Flaningam, `The Occasional Conformity Controversy', 40 31 Flaningam, `Occasional Conformity Controversy', 39 32 Ibid, 43

112 sincere Dissenter, Defoe actually shared the outrage felt by the Churchmen, albeit for different reasons. In An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters, in

Case of Preferment, a pamphlet published in response to Edwin's highly public occasional conformity, Defoe fulminated against the practice, describing it as `the 33 vilest Act of Perfidy in the World'. Conforming occasionally meant betraying both

God and one's co-religionists. `To say a man can be of two Religions, is a

Contradiction, unless there be two Gods to worship, or he has two Souls to save.'

Believing in God and serving God, Defoe asserted with some vigour, were `one and the same thing perfectly indivisible and inseparable; there is no Neuter Gender, no

Ambiguous Article, God or Baal; Mediums are impossible. ' Professing to two different ways of worship made a mockery of the very notion of liberty of conscience, which was designed to allow every individual to find their own way to heaven according to the `best of their Judgements'. Yet, `no Ship would arrive at any Port, that sailed two ways together, if that were possible'. 34Occasional Conformity, Defoe declared famously, was `playing Bo-peep with God Almighty' and, of course, with the law. One was either a Dissenter or a member of the Church of England, but not both: If I Dissent, the time Conform; by Conforming I deny ... and yet at same my Dissent being lawful, or by Dissenting I damn Conforming as sinful. Nothing can be lawful and unlawful at the same time; if it be not lawful for me to Dissent, I ought to Conform; but if it be unlawful for me to Conform, I must Dissent; several Opinions may be at the same time consist in a Country, in a City, in a Family, but not in one entire Person, that is impossible. 35

While there was much in Defoe's pamphlet with which the Anglican Tories were able to agree, the two sides naturally approached the problem of Occasional Conformity from two diametrically opposed angles. In contrast to the Anglicans, who considered the practice to be a theological and political threat to their Church, Defoe, during the

1690s, viewed Occasional Conformity as a purely religious issue: How, he asked

33 Daniel Defoe, An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity of Dissenters, in Case of Preferment (1697), Political & Economic Writings Vol. 3,51. A second edition of the pamphlet with a different preface was published in 1701. 34 ]bid, 45 35 Ibid, 46,48

113 rhetorically, could anyone view the practice as a `Civil Act in one place, and a

Religious Act in another? ' Sacraments, Defoe asserted, are `Religious Acts, and can be no other. '36 Taking communion in an Anglican Church in order to qualify for office was a prostitution of the Dissenters' religion and therefore ultimately destructive of it. A consideration of the political implications of Occasional

Conformity had not yet found a place in Defoe's earliest publication on the topic.

The middle years of William's reign proved `deeply unhappy' for the parochial clergy, who had been forced to witness passively the gradual erosion of the status of 37 the Church of England after the Revolution. Dismayed at the changes which had come upon their Church and the threat it was facing from the fast-growing Dissenting community, Anglicans faced the choice of either representing a `basically voluntary body' in English society or of actively working towards a return to their former status 38 of religious arm of the state. The political climate of the 1690s, during which the nation was mostly governed by the anti-clerical Whigs and headed by a king who, in a sense, was an occasional conformist himself, had denied Churchmen the chance to 39 make this choice. The accession of the devoutly Anglican Queen Anne in 1702, however, offered the Church of England the opportunity to actively reassess its position and, unsurprisingly, a large body of its members wished for a return to the past. Importantly, in the eyes of Anglican enthusiasts the `abominable hypocrisy' of Occasional Conformity had come to represent the epitome of all of their grievances and it promptly reached the top of the political agenda. For most of Anne's reign, the issue of Occasional Conformity was like `a keg of dynamite planted in the middle of 40 the party arena'. The relatively quiet life which England's Protestant Dissenters had enjoyed since the Glorious Revolution had come to an end.

It was, in fact, the new queen who, apparently unintentionally, lighted the fuse of this keg of Anglican discontent. An ambiguous statement delivered during her

36 Ibid, 48 37 Bennett, Tory Crisis, 12 38 Ibid, 22 39 See Flaningam, `Occasional Conformity Controversy', 43n, for a brief account of the High Church view of William III, who considered the king's strongly Calvinist beliefs to be inconsistent with the liturgy of the Church. 40 Holmes, Politics, Religion and Society, 190,197

114 speech dissolving parliament in May 1702 provided the catalyst for a full-scale High-

Church assault on Nonconformity. The queen might have announced her resolution to

`preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration', but to a Church of England party already intoxicated by the very fact that a Church of England queen now ruled the 41 country, this appeared a negligible detail. In contrast, Anne's assertion that `my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the Interests and Religion of the

Church of England, and will incline me to Countenance those who have the truest

Zeal to support it' appealed to the basic emotions of even the more moderate 42 churchmen and instantly boosted their confidence. The majority of the Anglican clergy chose to interpret the queen's words as a prompt to attack those who had done their best to damage their Church, the Nonconformists in general and the Occasional

Conformists in particular. What the ensuing controversy surrounding Occasional

Conformity showed first and foremost was the continued validity of the High 43 Anglican notion that `politics were religion, and religion political'.

The traditional Anglican notion of the symbiotic relationship between Church and state saw an instant restatement in a sermon preached at Oxford University by the

High Church divine Dr. Henry Sacheverell. The Doctor's sermon was made widely available in print in 1702 under the self-explanatory title of The Political Union. A

Discourse Shewing the Dependance of Government on Religion in General: And of the English Monarchy on the Church of England in Particular. The pamphlet is generally taken to represent the start of the High Church's press campaign against the

Dissenters. Sacheverell's position was, indeed, vintage High Anglicanism: The Civil and Ecclesiastical State are the Two Parts and Divisions, that Both United make up One entire compounded Constitution, and Body Politick, sharing the same Fate and Circumstances, Twisted and interwoven into the very Being and Principles of each Other... the surest and most infallible Means to Strengthen, Support, and Establish Civil Power, is by Maintaining and Defending the True Worship of GOD, and the Exercise of His Genuine and Unmixt Religion, and the most ready,

41 Abel Boyer, The History of the Reign of QueenAnne, digestedinto Annals. Year the First, Voll (London, 1703), 42; Holmes, 99 42 Boyer, Annals, 42 43 Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 86

115 effectual, and never-failing Way to Destroy it, is by Ruining and Destroying That. 44

Sacheverell's assertion that the security of the Church lay not only in safeguarding her liturgy from Puritan encroachments, but also in upholding her conservative political principles may be taken as representative of the entire High Church movement. As a result of High Anglicans and Tories closing ranks in their opposition to religious

Nonconformity, the concept of the divine indefeasible hereditary right of kings, seemingly defeated at the Revolution, emerged once again. 45

The events of 1689 had, of course, administered a heavy blow to Tory political theory. In fact, the repercussions of James' deposition were so strong that they had split the Anglican Tones into two ideologically related but nevertheless distinct camps. On the one hand, the Tory party retained an at times embarrassing and highly vocal Jacobite wing, perhaps best represented by the Irish non juror Charles Leslie, which continued to advocate absolute and divinely ordained monarchy and indefeasible hereditary right. In doing so, these High-Church Tories followed closely the standard expression of patriarchal theories, Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha (1680).

In one anonymous work of 1705, Filmer's idea that Adam and his regal successors were divinely ordained, absolute rulers was as alive as it had been a quarter of a century before: God made other Creatures Male and Female at once; but to constitute the right of Government entirely in the Man, He was form'd single. God in his Wisdom did not think it fit to make two Independents, and liked best of all Governments of Mankind, the Sovereignty of one, and that with that extent, that both Wife and Posterity should submit and subject themselves 46 to him...

`Adam, was, must be, and could not but be, ' the author concluded, `a Monarch... who is a King both by Birth and Fact'. Since a patriarchal ruler of Adam's kind is divinely ordained, `all Power among Men... is Subordinate to, and delegated by him' and

`Obedience is everywhere due' to him. This absolute power would not die with the

44 Henry Sacheverell, The Political Union (Oxford, 1702), 9,10 as Gerald Straka, `The Final Phase of Divine Right Theory in England, 1688-1702, ' English Historical Review 77 (1962), 638-658; Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 63 46 An Essay upon Government. Wherein the Republican Schemes Reviv'd by Mr Locke, Dr. Blackal, &c are Fairly Consider 'd and Refuted (1705), 7

116 but ruler was passed on to an heir: `... the right of Inheritance, or Hereditary Establish'd by God Monarchy was himself, what ever exceptions God, for reasons of his own, might sometimes please to make to his own Rules'. 47

In contrast to the High Tories, the moderate Tories and Low Churchmen for recognised a need a modification of Filmer's patriarchalism. In their efforts to

accommodate the Glorious Revolution, these Tories abandoned their former favour principles in of a system which did not exclusively focus on the monarch,

while trying `to salvage as much as possible from the ideology which they had built the Restoration' 48 Firstly, by discarding up since . this was achieved the notion of the hereditary divine right of succession, which William III's accession had made almost

impossible to maintain. Instead, Low Churchmen and moderate Tories emphasised the divinely instituted idea of monarchy. By claiming that the `providence of God

watched over pious princes to preserve them from violence, while those who

degraded their office by becoming tyrants were not allowed to end their days in

peace', the act of resistance which the Revolution undeniably represented could be idea 49 reconciled with the of divinely sanctioned monarchy. `Regardless of the

human legal right of one king over another, the great court of heaven had overruling jurisdiction in its providential acts against which man was powerless'. God's judgment `could not err, neither could it be resisted'. 50

Tory ideology Secondly, moderate replaced the king as the sole magistrate with

the governmental triad of King, Lords and Commons, which was, in fact, the very concept which had underpinned the Revolution Settlement. " Importantly, however, in

contrast to the Whig understanding of the nature of the coordination principle, this

new sovereign power was still considered by the moderate Tories to be absolute and irresistible. Sir Humphry Mackworth, for example, wrote that Commons, the King, Lords and united together, have an Absolute Supreme do Power, to whatever they shall think necessary or convenient for the Publick Good, of which they are the only Judges, there being no Legal

47 Ibid, 10,29,55 48 Dickinson, 29 49 Straka, `Final Phase', 648 50 Ibid, 647 51 See Chapter I, 35

117 Power on Earth to Controul them; so the several and particular powers lodged in them... must in their Nature be Supreme and Absolute against all 52 but one another.

By changing their opinion about `the source and location but not about the nature of this sovereign authority', the moderate Tories were able to `continue to preach the

crucial doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience'. Like their High-Church brothers, the moderate Tories believed that `their estates and their privileges could

only be secured by a political society in which there existed a single supreme 53 authority from whose decisions there could be no appeal'. The constitutional theory

of both the moderate and the extreme Tories and Churchmen could, therefore, be traced back to Filmer's theory of absolute government. Moreover, the accession of a

Stuart queen in Anne presented Anglican Tories with an `ideal excuse to defer a final 54 crisis of conscience' concerning the nature of the English monarchy.

In a society in which religion and politics were virtually indistinguishable,a link between the doctrines and theories of the two spheres was easily established. The

perceived interdependency of Church and state meant that many Tories viewed the Dissenters as being not only outside the national religious community but also as 55 separated from the political interests of the nation. The Dissenters' rejection of the

Church as the ultimate authority in religious matters and their continued anti-

episcopalism had maintained the connection in the Tory and High Church imagination between Nonconformity and political radicalism. Almost every piece of anti-Dissent

polemic characterised Nonconformity as a source of rebellion, usually by appealing to

the precedent of the Civil War. The execution of Charles I, the High Churchmen

believed, had sprung from the Dissenters' meeting-houses, which were nothing more

than `Nusseries [sic] of Rebellion, and Promoters of Treasonable designs'. 56

Sacheverell, for example, insisted that Presbytery and Republicanism go hand in hand, They are but the Same

52 Sir Humphrey Mackworth, A Vindication of the Rights of the Commons of England (1701), 3 53 Straka, `Final Phase', 14,43 54 Holmes, 90 55 Flaningam, `The Occasional Conformity Controversy', 46 56 The Establishment of the Church the Preservation of the State: Spewing the Reasonableness ofa Bill against Occasional Conformily (1702), 12

118 Disorderly, Levelling Principle, in the Two Different Branches of Our State... It may be Remember'd, that they were the Same Hands that were Guilty Both of Regicide and Sacriledge, that at once Divided the King's Head and Crown, and made Our Churches Stables, and Dens of Beasts, as 57 well as Thieves.

Charles Leslie agreed with his High Church brother and promptly proceeded to depicted Non-conformity as an even greater threat than the Papists: 'Two Popish

Reigns shed not the Hundred Part of the Blood, nor Destroy'd Liberty and Property in any Proportion to what the Dissenters did in Forty One'. Almost every family in the kingdom, he asserted, had suffered under the Dissenters' `Cursed Rebellion' and the 58 resulting scars `Sixty Years has not worn out'.

In addition, the example of the Civil Wars had demonstrated that the Dissenters were not as they claimed a `Religious Sect, whose Design only is a Particular Way of 59 Worship' but a `Political Faction'. And, as history showed, it was their political principles which made them such `Dangerous Enemies to the Government, as well as Church'60: the Nonconformists' `Avow'd Principle' of resistance to the authorities and `Doctrines of King-Killing and Deposing of Kings' had cost Charles his life and England her 61 Because this be `purg'd out in monarchy . spirit of rebellion could not one Descent', there was only one conceivable aim of such a `Religious Piece of Political Hypocrisy' as Occasional Conformity: further civil wars which would once 62 again end in the destruction of England's religious and civil establishments. `They have already Began', Leslie fanned anti-Dissent hysteria, `to Preach up the Doctrine Resistance, their Afternoons, or Evening-Meetings' 63 of at . At times, the explosion of High Church anger against Nonconformity lacked all restraint. Sacheverell demanded that the Church should put an immediate end to receiving the `Sly and Insidious Viper [of Dissent] into Her Bosom'. No longer should these `Crafty, Faithless, and Insidious Persons' be allowed to `Creep to Our Altars,

57 Henry Sacheverell, The Political Union (Oxford, 1702), 50-51 58 Charles Leslie, The New Association (1702), 15 59 Sacheverell, Political Union, 55 60 Ibid, 49 61 Charles Leslie, New Association. Part 11(1703), 5; idem, The New Association, 4`f' edition corrected (1705), 13; Sacheverell, Political Union, 56 62 Leslie, New Association, 4t' edition, 29; Sacheverell, Political Union, 61 63 Leslie, New Association. Part 11,5

119 64 and Partake of Our Sacrament'. The solution which Sacheverell proposed was nothing short of a total extirpation of Nonconformity, if necessary by violent means.

The Dissenting `viper' needed to be driven out into the open, he asserted, so that the

`Boar out of the Wood might Waste it, and the Beasts of the Field Devour it'. The sermon's famous hysterical crescendo was reminiscent of a declaration of war: every man who wished the Church's welfare, Sacheverell urged his hearers and readers,

`ought to Hang out the Bloody Flag, and Banner of Defiance' against 65 Nonconformity. Sacheverell's militancy was echoed by several other High Church polemicists. One author, in an act of pretended charity, suggested that the wayward

Dissenters must be 'deliver'd unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh, that the 66 Spirit might be sav'd'. Similarly, High Church writer Mary Astell had no qualms about openly declaring that the Anglicans intended to `strike at the root of the

Dissenting Interest, to extirpate and destroy Dissention, and hinder its Succession in the Nation' and that, in short, the `Total Destruction of Dissenters as a Party... is our Design'. 67

Naturally, the words of the High Church campaigners had a strongly disquieting effect on the minds of the dissenting community and a number of pamphlets appeared defending Occasional Conformity and, by implication, religious dissent. One of the most common concerns in these tracts was that any piece of legislation preventing

Occasional Conformity would make `innocent Men Criminals, with design to make 68 `em odious'. Few Dissenters disagreed with the point of view that conforming occasionally for office was a `scandalous Practice, a Reproach to Religion, and offensive to all Good Christians' but importantly, there were exceptions to this rule.

Breaking a law which prohibited religious dissent, one defender of Occasional

Conformity argued, was `a great Evil'. Yet, conforming constantly against one's better judgement was `sinful' and therefore an even `greater Evil'. The solution to this

64 Sacheverell, Political Union, 52,61 65 lbid, 52-53,59 66 The Establishment of the Church, 13 67 Mary Astell, Moderation Truly Stated: Or, A Review of a late Pamphlet, Fntitul 'd, Moderation a Vertue (1704), 3 68 James Owen, Moderation a Virtue: Or, the Occasional Conformist Justify'd from the Imputation of Hypocrisy (1703), 6

120 problem was conforming occasionally to the established Church to abide by the laws,

while maintaining one's status as a Dissenter at all other times to satisfy one's 69 An important conscience. qualification to this rule, however, was that there needed be between to a general parity the principles of the established Church and those of Dissenter. Fortunately, the this was the case with regard to the Church of England and England's Dissenting Churches, which could all be considered `true Churches'. The

Anglicans and the Dissenters did, in fact, agree in `all the Essentials of Christianity',

while the `Things wherein they disagree... [were] but few and inconsiderable'.

Consequently, an Occasional Conformist was really `not so formidable a Creature'. 70

Other writers defended the practice in very similar terms: by taking the

Anglican communion occasionally, a Dissenter declared that the Church of England was a `Sound Part of the Catholick [i. e. primitive Christian] Church... He communicates with it, because he agrees with it in all the Essentials of Christianity, he its impositions. tho' approves not of ' Thus, Occasional Conformity enabled a his identity, Dissenter to retain religious while it showed him to be an `enemy of 7' Ignoring fact separation'. the that occasional conformists were actually stretching the interpretation of the law to its limits, more legalistic approaches to the issue stressed that Occasional Conformists only did what they were legally required to do. did Nonconformists not take the Anglican communion to qualify for office, it was asserted, but conformed occasionally because, as office holders, the law forced them do And `doing to so. the what the Law requires, is no Fault sure, to be punished with his Office, is doing the Loss of nor the that which the Law forbids not, in going to a Meeting afterwards. 372

As his first pamphlet on the issue, An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity Dissenters, indicated, Defoe's of attitude towards Occasional Conformity could not from have been further the moderate stance of the majority of his fellow Dissenters and, despite the rapidly growing High Church animosity towards Nonconformity, he

69 Ibid, 7-9 70 Ibid, 11,15-16 71 John Hooke, Catholicism without Popery, Part 11(1704), 7-8 72 John Humphrey, Letters Parliament to Men (1701), cited in Flaningam, `The Occasional Conformity Controversy', 48-49

121 was prepared to continue his attack on his office holding co-religionists. Occasional Conformity, Defoe maintained dogmatically, was simply `not to be defended' because 73 it was `contrary to the very Nature and Being of a Dissenter'. If one could indeed reduce all the differences between the principles of the Church of England and the Dissenters to a trifle, then dissenting from the established Church was merely a

`needless and unchristian Separation'. In fact, `Occasional Conformity to a Church from which we have separated', Defoe agreed with his High Church opponents, `does Precedents for it not appear to be lawful or justifiable in a Dissenter, nor are there any in the Scripture'. Moreover, `the whole practice of it [is] a Scandal to the Dissenters, Posterity least ruinous to their Interests; and tends to reduce them all or their at to an in Religion'. 74 absolute total Conformity, or at best a general Indifferency Matters of Since the safety of Nonconformity lay in the `Honesty and Integrity' of their Conformists. The consciences, the Dissenters should disavow all Occasional truly `Knaves' indeed, he conscientious Dissenter had nothing to do with these apostate and behalf `would wished, Defoe falsely claimed on of all Nonconformists, that they go Conformity out' from his community. Therefore, an Act against Occasional was it blow [the actually beneficial to the Dissenters, since was a `Machine to them Occasional Conformists] all up'. True Nonconformists, Defoe concluded, were in fact 75 `glad' to have the practice 'condemn'd by Authority'.

It is remarkable how close Defoe's rhetoric against Occasional Conformity Leslie, his came to that of extreme High Churchmen like Sacheverell or and first contribution to the debate during the year or so of controversy was sure to win him few friends among his co-religionists. A year after the Doctor's sermon had

ignited the Occasional Conformity controversy in the press, Defoe, it seems, but considered the high-flying Anglicans to be little more than an annoying still

relatively minor threat to the Dissenters. In fact, he believed a greater threat to be

73 Daniel Defoe, The Sincerity of the Dissenters Vindicated, From the Scandal of Occasional Conformity (1703), 5; idem, The Opinion of a Known Dissenter on the Bill for Preventing Occasional Conformity (1703), 2; also sec An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity. Shewing that the Dissenters Are no Way Concern 'd in it (1702), Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 3,86,90 74 Defoe, Sincerity of the Dissenters Vindicated, 26-27 75 Defoe, An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity, 83,88,91

122 coming from within: having been granted a legal toleration, it was now only the

Dissenters themselves who might destroy their privileges through unlawful behaviour such as Occasional Conformity. The confidence with which Defoe was prepared to fight not only on one but two fronts was, as we shall see below, clearly visible in his counter attack on High Church propaganda.

Defoe's approach to the Occasional Conformity Controversy was in many ways typical for his work as a polemicist. His strategy during the Standing Army

Controversy had involved a pamphlet campaign which, in a highly factual and systematic manner, refuted virtually every radical Whig argument against William's forces. Importantly, however, Defoe had complemented his pro-army tracts with the verse satire The True-Born Englishman, which, as Chapter II demonstrates, challenged and subverted radical Whig historiography and anti-army rhetoric at its most fundamental level. Defoe's counter attack on High Church polemics, it will become apparent, followed a very similar pattern.

Defoe's stance on the political issues raised by the High Church polemicists, it is worthwhile to point out, had been clear even before the start of the controversy. As

a Whig and Dissenter, he did indeed subscribe to the doctrine of resistance and the notion of a limited monarchy. In `broadly Lockean fashion' Defoe maintained that all

political power derived from the people, more specifically from the property owners,

and that England's government was based on a retractable social contract between the 76 monarch and his subjects. This contract, which not only subjected the king to

existing legislation but also required subjects to obey lawful governments, became

void if the king dispensed with the law and ruled tyrannically. In this case, the people

had a legal and natural right to resist and depose the monarch in order to establish a

new government.

The concept of England's limited monarchy was a constant theme in Defoe

writings. In his standing army pamphlets, for example, he emphasised that the king's

actions were only legal if they obtained the sanction of parliament, while maintaining " that arbitrary measures may be resisted. In The 'T'rue-Born Englishman Defoe stated

76 Furbank, `Introduction', Satire Vol. 2,22 77 See Chapter I, 66-67

123 that `When Kings the Sword of Justice first lay down, They are no Kings, though they 78 possess the Crown'. Contract theory was fully embraced in the poem: But if the Mutual Contract was dissolv'd, The Doubt's explain'd, the Difficulty solv'd: That Kings, when they descend to Tyranny, Dissolve the Bond, and leave the Subject free. 79

Dressing his constitutional rhetoric in verse allowed Defoe to reduce his argument to

its bare minimum: the powerful end-rhymes in the above quotation effectively forced

home the message that tyrannical government instantly relieved subjects from their

social and political duty of allegiance. As a polemical tool, verse was, of course,

highly effective, since it could express pithily elaborate concepts and offer handy

commonplaces, while allowing the author to circumvent lengthy explanatory sections.

On the other hand, the brevity of the lines prevented greater constitutional elaboration, which could potentially hamper the presentation of a more complete account of the

author's political ideas. Perhaps for this reason, Defoe, a few months prior to the start

of the parliamentary struggle over Occasional Conformity, published a succinctly argued pamphlet which rendered the message of The True-Born Englishman into

prose. The idea of a retractable social contract and the people as the source of all

political power was ever present in The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England, Examined and Asserted: All Powers Delegated [by the people] are to one Great End and Purpose, and no other, and that is the Publick Good. If either or all the Branches to whom this Power is Delegated invert the Design, the end of their Power, the Right they have to that Power ceases... 80

Once the campaign against Occasional Conformity and Nonconformity was in full flow Defoe used almost every opportunity to reiterate his political principles. Even

publications which were not predominantly concerned with constitutional theory and the people's rights, still made overt references to the issues raised in The hrue-Born The Original Power. Englishman and For example, the poem The Address, published

in 1704 as an attack on the Tory majority in the House of Commons, discussed the

'R Defoe, True-Born Englishman, 291 79 Ibid, 292 80 Defoe, Original Power, 113

124 creation of laws as the people's protection from arbitrary measures as well as the sl people's right to elect and remove their representatives. The I)yet of Poland of 1705 attacked the `th' Hereditary vile Disease' of absolute government, while Advice to All 82 Parties (1705) paraphrased large sections of The Original Power. In the same year

Defoe stated in the Review that when Princes break the Compacts of Government, Tyrannize and Oppress their Subjects, God by the Hands of those Subjects has thought fit to disengage the Distressed Country from Cruelty and Encroachment of their Princes, and Deposing and Disarming them as Monsters, and Wild Beasts, has placed other Princes, whether of the Line, or no, to govern in their 83 stead.

It is important to note that Defoe's constant reiteration of the Whig notions of contractual government and the right of resistance were not merely a rhetorical reflex to the re-emergence of the High Tory doctrines of divine right and non-resistance.

Rather, Defoe's Whiggish ideas represented the foundation on which he was able to rest what was arguably the most successful element of his counter offensive against

Anglican extremism -a refutation of the popular High Church claim that the Dissenters were mere rebels and regicides, who wanted to `Under-Mine and Blow-Up 84 the present Church and Government'. The principal pamphlet in which Defoe tried to achieve this appeared in 1702 under the title of A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty. The combination of historical examples and political theory in this tract made for a highly forceful and convincing attack on High Church propaganda and the confidence with which Defoe turned from a denunciation of occasional conformity to launch an assault on High Church enthusiasm perhaps betrayed the faith he had in the strength of his own propaganda.

A New Test began by comparing the political ideologies of the Anglican Tories and the Whiggish Dissenters: `the distinguishing Mark' of the Church of England,

Defoe explained, was `all her Members Principles of unshaken Loyalty to her

81 Daniel Defoe, The Address (1704), Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 2,73-6, 11.141-5,161-65,236-45 82 Daniel Defoe, The Dyet of Poland. A Satyr (1705), Poems on Affairs of State, Vol. 7, F. H. Ellis ed (New Haven & London, 1975), 82,1.184; Daniel Defoe, Advice to All Parties (1705), Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 2,94-6 83 The Review, Vol.!!, No. 77 (30 August 1705), 307 84 Sec the title page of Leslie's The New Association.

125 Prince'. 85 Recent High Church publications in particular had left the nation in no doubt that the `Doctrines of Non-resistance of Princes, Passive Obedience, and the

Divine Authority of the Kingly Power, is own'd and declar'd to be an Essential Part like of the Profession and Practice' of the Established Church. Anglicans Sacheverell had repeatedly boasted of their Church's `unspotted Loyalty and Obedience' to the 86 believed monarchy. In contrast, the Dissenters and Whigs, Defoe asserted, that the `Government of England is a limited Monarchy' and that government was `originally contrived by the Consent... of the Parties Govern'd'; any invasion of the people's dissolves right to property and liberty was `destructive of the Constitution, and the 87 Compact of Government and Obedience'. Yet, if one now applied the political theory of the two parties to their respective histories, Defoe continued triumphantly, it would soon become clear which one of the two was able to truthfully claim `unspotted loyalty and obedience' to the crown. To begin with, it should be remembered that, in the early days of the reformation, it was in fact the members of the Church of England by who were the `Dissenters, the Schismaticks and Phanaticks' and who were treated the Church of Rome as `Enemies to the Government' and `Contemners of Authority'.

The Dissenters, on the other hand, throughout the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, `illegal Persecutions' when the Church had become fully established, quietly bore the Up it to which both the monarch and the Church subjected them. to this point, was the Dissenters and not the Church who had demonstrated `Patience and Passive Obedience'. This, however, changed when Charles I invaded the people's civil rights forced discarding former loyalty in and the Dissenters saw themselves into their order Defoe to protect the rights and liberties of the entire nation. `I am willing to grant',

stated confidently, that the `Dissenters... did imbrue their Hands in the Blood of the Lord's Anointed'. What one needed to remember, of course, was that Charles had least in ceased to be the Lord's Anointed as soon as he broke the law, at the eyes of "" the contractarian Whigs and Dissenters.

85 Daniel Defoe, A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty: Or, Whiggish Loyalty and Church Loyalty Compar'd. (1702), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 3,59 86 Ibid, 60 87 Ibid, 61,65 88 lbid, 63-64,66

126 Memory seemed to serve High Church minds very well when it came to the

Civil War but more recent history clearly caused the Anglican zealots some problems.

What, Defoe asked polemically, became of High Church loyalty at the Glorious Revolution? As a result of the Sacramental Test, `all the Managing Hands in the

Kingdom were Disciples of the Church' and what did they do as soon as James 11 seemed to `aim at crushing her Authority'? They began to `winch and kick, fly to foreign Princes for Protection, and rise in Arms against her Prince'! " Neither did the fact that no blood was spilt at the Revolution change anything. `I think the Difference only lyes here', Defoe asserted with discernable satisfaction, The Whigs in 41. to 48. took up Arms against their King; and having conquer'd him, and taken him Prisoner, cut off his Head, because they had him: The Church of England took Arms against their King in 88. and did not cut off his Head, because they had him not. King Charles lost his Life, because he did not run away; and his Son, King James, sav'd his Life, because he did run away. 90

Importantly, because Charles' rule had become unlawful, his deposition, Defoe reiterated his own political beliefs, had been `no Crime, the Church of England has been in the right of it'. Rather, the Church's `Error was in Espousing, Crying up, and Pretending to a Blind Absolute Obedience to Princes'. The Churchmen had in fact only acted in accordance with what nature dictated: they had liberated themselves and the nation from illegal oppression. `And so we are brought back to Whiggism and 41',

Defoe attacked High-Church sentiments one final time. Sacheverell and his friends would be well advised to show `a little more Modesty' to the Dissenters in future, because `as to Loyalty, Passive Obedience, Non-resistance, etc. there is really no great

Difference between one side or other,... all Parties have in their Turns been equally

Loyal: I was going to say, equally Disloyal'. 91

The point Defoe had made in A New Test with regard to the issue of Anglican loyalty was not easily refuted. The Anglican Church had indeed taken an active part in the Revolution, and consequently, the few responses which the pamphlet received often resorted to personal insults, `the Author is very stupid', or merely claimed that

89 Ibid, 64,66-67 "' Ibid, 65 91 Ibid, 61

127 the Church was `not answerable' for the private opinions of some of her doctors. 92

Defoe was aware of the strength of his argument and two years later he boasted of the 93 lack of convincing replies to A New Test. Unsurprisingly, Defoe frequently returned to the question of Anglican loyalty in subsequent publications concerned with Nonconformity. 94

While A New Test may have been a success from a polemical point of view, it did little to change the minds of High Tories politicians: in November 1702, only a few weeks after the new Parliament opened, a Bill against Occasional Conformity 95 was introduced in the Commons by the Church party. The powerful Tory majority in the Commons made the passage of the Bill in that House a foregone conclusion and all depended now on the Lords, where the Whigs held a slender majority over the

Tories. Defoe, it seems, felt that his exposure of the flaws of Tory ideology and their misleading claim to a perfect loyalty might not have been enough to prevent the passage of the Bill into law and he proceeded to compose a tract with which he aimed to demonstrate the real meaning of High Church rhetoric. The result was Defoe's perhaps best-known pamphlet, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. That the tract was indeed intended to influence the peers' attitude towards the legislation proposed by the Tories is shown by its time of publication: The Shortest Way appeared in 96 December 1702, during the week the Bill was given its first reading in the Lords.

The Shortest Way was not concerned with political ideology or theological questions per se. Rather, the tract closely engaged with the language employed by the

High Church zealots. Defoe satirised the sentiments of Sacheverell and his followers by echoing their key phrases and arguments and by exposing them through the subtle

92 [James Drake? ], Some Necessary Considerations Relating to all future Elections of Members to Serve in Parliament, Humbly offer 'd to all Electors, Whether they be True Sons of the Church of England, as by Law Established, Or Modest Protestant Dissenters, 2ndedition (1702), Preface 93 See A New Test of the Church of England's Honesty (1704), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 3,189. 94 highlighted Other pamphlets which the Church's part in the Revolution are An Enquiry into Occasional Conformity (1702), Peace Without Union (1703), The Dissenters Answer to the High Church Challenge (1704) and The Dissenter Misrepresented, and Represented [1704'?]. 95 Holmes, 101 96 Owens, `Introduction', Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 3,15

128 97 use of hyperbole. He, it seems, believed that by focusing on the rhetoric of the High

Church zealots, he could expose sufficiently the true designs of the High Church campaign against the Dissenters. While Sacheverell talked of the `bloody Flag of

Defiance', Defoe openly advocated violence against the non-conformists: Alas! The Church of England! What with Popery on one hand, and Schismaticks on the other; how has she been Crucified between two Thieves. Now, let us crucfiie the thieves. Let her foundations be Established upon the Destruction of her Enemies: the Doors of Mercy being always open to the returning Part of the deluded People: Let the 98 obstinate be rul'd with the Rod of iron.

Defoe, however, had been too subtle in his mimicry of High Church polemics and, while his proposals for the solution of the `Dissent problem' were extreme, they were not extreme enough to expose the tract as a parody of High Church sentiments.

Disastrously, both the Dissenters and the High Church read the Shortest Way literally.

Leslie, for example, remarked that he believed that the pamphlet contained a `great deal of Truth' and that `none of whom I could meet with, or hear of, did imagine it 99 could be wrote by a Whigg'. The Dissenters attacked the tract for its extremism, while the High-Church Tories initially found many agreeable sentiments in it. Once the High-Church Tories recognised the trick Defoe had played on them, however,

their anger and indignation was unrestrainable. The government, led by the High Tory

Lord Nottingham, wanted to make an example of Defoe. Ignoring the ironic character

of The Shortest Way, the High-Church majority in the Commons asserted that Defoe had been `scheming to deny Dissenters religious toleration', that he had `promoted

sedition', and that he `had failed to treat Parliament with respect and had infringed 100 upon its privileges'. The actual indictment, however, was to be different and

concentrated on the charge that The Shortest Way was a direct affront to Queen Anne,

97 Backscheider, 96; for a detailed discussion of the pamphlet sec 94-105. Also see Novak, 173-8,184-7; idem, 'Defoe's "Shortest Way with the Dissenters": Hoax, Parody, Paradox, Fiction, Irony, and Satire, ' Modern Language Quarterly 27 (1966), 402-417; J.A. Downie, `Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters: Irony, Intention and Reader-Response,' Prose Studies 9 (1986), 120-139. 98 Daniel Defoe, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 3,109 99 Leslie New Association. Part II, 6 100 Backscheider, 103

129 who had promised to guarantee the toleration of Dissent. After a number of spells between May and November 1703 in Newgate prison, Defoe was eventually sentenced to stand in the pillory on three separate occasions for publishing a seditious 101 libel. His effort to expose High Church propaganda by focusing on and satirically undermining its rhetorical aspects had been nothing short of a complete failure. 102

The punishment which the government had meted out to Defoe for The Shortest

Way had a discernible effect on his campaign against the Anglican zealots.

Significantly, Defoe had now personally experienced the kind of treatment which the

High Churchmen had demanded for the Dissenters. Over a decade later he remembered the episode with a clear sense of bitterness, claiming that he `fell a

Sacrifice for writing against the Rage and Madness of that High Party'. Sadly, the whole affair, he continued, left him `friendless and distress'd' and his `Family 103 ruin'd'. After 1703, Defoe did not publish any further tracts which were predominantly concerned with attacking his fellow Dissenters for their occasional conformity. He discarded much of his earlier dogmatism and instead rejected the debate over occasional conformity as `nothing to the purpose, whether this Practice is IN to be vindicated or not', only briefly hinting at his disapproval of it. In fact, Defoe even began to defend the occasional conformists, admittedly in the most tentative terms, by pointing out that vindications of the practice had not yet been successfully answered by the Anglicans. Taking the side of the occasional conformists, he declared that these `Unanswer'd Books' still stood `as a Challenge' to the High-Flyers. 105

101 Novak, 185-86 102 Defoe himself did not consider the pamphlet to have been a failure. In fact, he claimed that The Shortest Way had had `all the effect he wish'd for' and that it actually forced the High Tories to declare themselves against the Occasional Bill (Owens, `Introduction', Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 3,18-19). This claim, however, may have largely been a face-saving exercise. Defoe probably exaggerated the political effect of the tract, and his imprisonment and subsequent bankruptcy, as his fellow well as the rift with Dissenters which The Shortest Way generated, surely cannot have been his intention. See J.A. Downie, 'Defoe's Shortest Way', 136-7. 103 Daniel Defoe, An Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), in J.T. Boulton ed. Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe (Cambridge, 1975), 171 104 Daniel Defoe, The Dissenter Misrepresented and Represented (1704), Political & Economic Writings Vol. 3,210; also see Peace without Union, I1 105 Ibid, 211-12

130 imprisonment The period of in Newgate and the public humiliation of the pillory appear to have clarified for Defoe which of the two, Occasional Conformists

or High Churchmen, posed a greater threat to the welfare of Nonconformity. he dedicated his Subsequently, writings to answering one question: `to what End do the Gentlemen of the Church of England Clamour at our Occasional Co formity? i 106

It was now becoming increasingly more apparent, Defoe asserted indignantly, that

`the Shortest Way is at the Bottom, and Mr. De E be has done them no Wrong'. 107The

Test Act, which the High Churchmen had celebrated as the bulwark of the Church's fact, safety, had not, in been designed to protect the Church from Popery but was a

political measure to keep the Whigs and Dissenters `out of the State'. 1°8 The

Dissenters, however, had managed to defeat the `Trick of this State Ceremony' by

conforming occasionally to the communion of the Church and it was for the political

rather than theological implications of Occasional Conformity that Sacheverell and ' 09 his followers had attacked the Dissenters so violently. Defoe, then, had performed a

volte-face concerning the occasional conformity: the strong line of conscience he had

taken in his early commentary on the practice was replaced by a concern over the political implications of the High-Church campaign.

The High-Flyers, it seemed, were attempting to establish an absolutist regime. Out of gratitude to the Dissenters for their support during the Glorious Revolution the had Anglican Church agreed to acknowledge the right of liberty of conscience and

entered into a `League with the Dissenters'. The Act of Toleration, Defoe claimed in fashion, `Contract true Whig was a between Them [the Dissenters] and the Church of England; it was a `Formal Treaty' which `ought to be kept Sacred'. 10 Yet, the

Occasional Bill was `directly contrary both to the Act of Toleration, and of itself

Destructive of Liberty of Conscience', because it obliged the Dissenters to a `Total

106 Defoe, Church England's Honesty, of 202. Note the way in which Defoe clearly sides with the Occasional Conformists. 107 Ibid, 201 108 Church England's Defoe, of Honesty, 202; also idem, Peace without Union, 10,12 and A Serious Inquiry, 5 109 Ibid 110 Ibid, 197

131 "' Conformity, or else to suffer such and such Penalties'. The effect of an act against

Occasional Conformity smacked of civil tyranny. returning to the ironical mode of

The Shortest Way, Defoe asserted that the High Churchmen were for depriving the

Dissenters of `their Right of Voting for Parliament Men as Freeholders; to which I wou'd add, Let them go on, and take away their Freeholds too, a thing every jot as just, and then the Business wou'd be over. '12 By denying Nonconformists their

`Birth-right, as Englishmen', of engaging fully in the civil sphere, the Occasional Bill might bring the domestic peace which the nation desired, but surely, Defoe 113 concluded, this was a `French Peace'.

Defoe's reaction to the defeat he had suffered at the hands of the High Church

Tories did not remain restricted to a series of pamphlets, however. At the end of 1700, soon after the failure of the Court campaign to save William's standing army, Defoe decided to make a last stand on the matter by publishing the verse satire the 7rue-

Born Englishman, which represented his final, eclectic attack on Country Whig ideology. Within weeks of his imprisonment for publishing Me Shortest Way, Defoe decided to respond in the same manner again and began work on a new, even more ambitious verse satire, which, first announced in 1704, eventually appeared in 1706 114 under the title of Jure Divino. Defoe immediately identified the High Church revival of the past four years as the context in which his satire had to be read: Jure Divino would have never come into existence, he claimed, `had not the World seem'd to be going mad a second Time with the Error of Passive Obedience and Non-

Resistance' (35). In his effort to defeat once and for all the political doctrines of those who had sent him to Newgate, Defoe produced the `locus classicus for his political thought'. 115

III Defoe, Peace without Union, 7; idem A Serious Inquiry, 7 112 Defoe, The Dissenter Misrepresented, 213 113 Defoe, Peace without Union, 7-8 114 In the preface to Jure Divino Defoe admitted that the `greatest part of it was compos'd in Prison' (63). For a publication history of the poem see Furbank, `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 2,27-28. 15 Manuel Schonhorn, `Defoe: The Literature of Politics and the Politics of Some Fictions, ' in M. E. Novak (ed), English Literature in the Age of Disguise (Berkeley & London, 1977), 15

132 Jure Divino's twelve books did indeed offer Defoe enough space to explicate

his political theory in great detail. The composition of a philosophical verse essay of this length was an ambitious undertaking and Defoe appears to have wanted to emulate the success of The True-Born Englishman in order to firmly establish his

reputation as a poet. Poets typically reserved this form of heroic poetry for their most

serious works and, as Backscheider has highlighted, by the time Defoe began his verse satire, the aspiring poet was expected to fulfil a number of formal expectations: The form had become the standard one for the presentation of a system designed to increase order, wisdom, and human happiness. Its architectural structure depended upon an examination of a subject and its principles; its movement flowed from statements about the nature of man and existence through cumulative examples, images, and exposition to a 116 celebration of an organizing conclusion.

In an effort to present his own system, Defoe offered his readers a complete account

of the origins of government in Jure Divino, with a special focus on the rise of

tyranny and the associated doctrines of divine right and non-resistance. Somewhat

surprisingly perhaps, the reader learns in Book II that Filmer's theory of patriarchal

government could not be dismissed entirely, since in the early stages of humankind,

Adamic fathers ruled their families as a monarch ruled a nation (102-3,11.42-73).

Moreover, Defoe explained, in a scarcely populated world this form of government

was perfectly viable, since little or no contact with other families denied humans the

opportunity to live out their natural inclination to tyranny, that is, to subdue others and

enrich themselves at their cost. However, patriarchal power, Defoe wanted his readers

to remember, was strictly limited: `In the Paternal Right no Man could reign, / Farther

than his own Houshold did contain' (103,11.52-3).

Defoe's next step was to firmly consign patriarchal forms of government to the

time when `Nature in her Infant-Cradle Jay' (103,1.67). As soon as the land became

more densely populated, he explained, man's tyrannical nature came to the fore and

the family unit was no longer able to adequately protect the individual's liberty and

property from the encroachments of others (105,11.98-109). At the moment when

116 Backscheider, The Verse Essay', 100

133 `Families united by consent' (103,1.56) in order to protect their interests patriarchal government became obsolete: Necessity Confederate Heads Directs, And Power United, Power Expos'd Protects, The Nature of the Thing directs the Mode, And Government was born in Publick Good: Safety with Right and Property combines, And thus Necessity with Nature joins. (104,11.78-83)

According to Defoe, then, the birth of political societies was a direct result of the

emergence of contractual government, while, at the same time, it caused the demise of

`incompleat' patriarchal power (105,1.98). In this context it is important to note that

Defoe's idea of political power displayed distinctly Harringtonian elements in that he ' 7 firmly attached the right to rule to the possession of property. Only the proprietors

of the land, the freeholders, were invested with the power which allowed them to

create governments and laws for the protection of all (173,11.47-61; 174n). In the process of creating a political society, the freeholders divested most of their right to rule to their elected governors and volunteered to be restricted by the law. The power enjoyed by governments thus derived directly from the propertied people.

Defoe included an important qualification in his version of the origins of contractual government. The freeholders, he asserted, did not divest themselves of all their natural rights but retained a reservoir of political power which allowed them to resist and remove their chosen governor if he did not rule according to the law. A ruler who became tyrannical could not expect the original contract with his people to continue: When Kings the Pact of Government destroy, There's no more Bonds to hold Obedience by, Order and Laws, of Course, must cease to be, And Mankind's level'd down to One Degree (204,11.195-198)

became If a governor absolute and arbitrary, government as well as political society as an institution practically ceased to exist and the freeholders found themselves returned to what was in essence the state of nature. Under these circumstance, disobeying the

117 idem, Defoe Novak, 282; and the Nature of Man, 15; also see Chapter 1,37

134 monarch did not constitute an act of rebellion. Rather, resistance was a justified act of liberation: he who `resists Tyrannick Power, / Does not the Laws resist, but the Laws restore' (203,1.137; 205,11.206-7).

As we have seen, much of the political thought of Jure I)ivino had already appeared in those of Defoe's pamphlets which had engaged with the High Church campaign against religious dissent. Defoe's verse satire was, in this sense, an extended reassertion and continuation of his pro-Dissent polemics and it is therefore no surprise to find that he also returned to the challenge with which he most liked to confront the Anglican zealots. How, he asked once again, could the High Churchmen reconcile their doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience with their role in the late Revolution: Was King James treated like a Man that could that could do no Wrong, and was not Accountable? Let those who blame some People for the inconsistency of their Principles, reconcile if they can the Doctrine of Passive-Obedience, Non-Resistance, and the Kings not being Accountable, to the Practice of the High-Church of England in the Primitive Part of the Late Revolution. (37)

It was impossible, Defoe continued, `to reconcile the Principle of Passive Obedience

with the whole Proceeding of the Late Revolution'. However, while Defoe's initial

aim, as Furbank has pointed out, appears to have been to demonstrate the `remarkably

small' difference between the roles which the Dissenters and the Church had played in the respective revolutions, Jure Divino took the comparison a significant step

further and, indeed, brought to a conclusion Defoe's counter attack against High 118 Church polemic which had branded the Dissenters as rebels and regicides.

In A New Test Defoe had already stated that, in contrast to the Church, the

Whigs, because they openly professed the right of resistance to be one of their 119 principles, had been the `honester of the two'. Jure Divino extended this evaluation

of the moral dimension of the two revolutions to a consideration of the respective

fates of Charles and James or, as Defoe put it, to an assessment of `which of the two

Kings had the worst Treatment' (46). Predictably, it was James who was seen to have

suffered `the most, and with more cutting Aggravations'. Unlike Charles, who always

118 Furbank, `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 2,19 119 Defoe, A New Test, 65

135 retained a loyal following and whose life found a swift end in a `Wet Martyrdome', James was `abandon'd of those very Men [the Anglican bishops] that had led him by hand into Snare' Tyranny the the of and now had to bear the continuing indignity of a in France. 120 `Dry Martyrdome' Even the terrors of a death on the scaffold could not

`amount to a Ballance of the Exile, the Insults, the unsufferable Treachery of Friends, length and this added to the of Time' which James had been forced to suffer.

Therefore, the `Guilt of the last [Revolutionaries] rather exceeds that of the first' (46- 50).

With innumerable references to the Civil War, Sacheverell and Leslie had

sought to tar Dissent as a whole with the brush of disobedience and rebelliousness. In

a country in which `conservatism was still the natural political philosophy' the

regicide of Charles represented strong polemical currency. 12' Naturally, the High

Church writers willingly kept alive the accusation that Occasional Conformity

`plainly repeated' the Nonconformists' `Methods and restless Industry in Ruining in 122 King and Kingdom 41'. Thus, it was absolutely necessary for any refutation of High Church propaganda to show that it was not the Dissenters but the High Flying

Anglicans who were being hypocritical. Defoe achieved this by answering the High

Churchmen on their own terms: like Sacheverell and Leslie he appealed to historical precedent by highlighting the active role the Church of England had played in the Significantly, Glorious Revolution. he extended this approach by developing his very The `ruthless own taxonomy. witticism' of the labelling the respective fates of

Charles and James as `wet and dry martyrdoms', claims Furbank, not only greatly it annoyed the Anglican zealots, also transferred the rhetorical control of the debate 123 into Defoe's ownership. Leslie's indignant outcry `Can this be lndur'd! ' and his hysterical somewhat rejection of Defoe's phraseology was only one example of how successful this particular element of Defoe's pro-Dissent polemics continued to be. 124

120 first Defoe's use of the terms `Dry and Wet Martyrdome' occurred in the Review for 18 December 1705. 121 Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 61 122 Mary Astell, A Fair Way with the Dissenters and their Patrons (1704), 23 123 Furbank, `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 2,19 124 Leslie addressed Defoe's phraseology in the Rehearsal for 5 January 1706. Sec `Introduction', Satire, Furbank, Vol. 2,19n, for an extract from this issue.

136 Jure Divino, then, returned to the two main themes of High Church propaganda,

High Tory political theories and the Dissenter's rebellious, Whiggish nature, and

provided an extended and refined version of the answers Defoe had already offered in

his pamphlets. While some of Defoe's remarks were clearly linked to the debate

surrounding Occasional Conformity, his discussion of political theory in Jure ! )ivino

certainly rose to a `higher level of generality' than, for example, that of The Original 125 Power or The True-Born Englishman. There was, however, a further aspect of

Defoe's verse satire which did engage closely with the High Church campaign against

Nonconformity and which has hitherto largely escaped scholarly attention. The

Toleration Act, Defoe had argued repeatedly, was a recognition of the Dissenters'

right to a liberty of conscience and should stand inviolably. Yet, his initial vehement

denunciation of Occasional Conformity for undermining the sincerity of

Nonconformist consciences had inevitably played directly into the hands of the High

Flying polemicists, who quickly came to focus on this issue. '2`6'See how easily these

Men can satisfie their Consciences! ', Leslie picked up the theme of individual

religious beliefs and agreed with Defoe that `Loose Practices beget loose 127 Principles'. The Dissenters, the High Church writer Mary Astell asserted typically,

had started the debate concerning the tenderness of their consciences merely to

provide a smokescreen for their `Secular Motive' of gaining public office. Their

pleading for liberty of conscience was sheer hypocrisy: the Dissenter can Conform he thinks Conformity is .Jf sometimes, either not absolutely Unlawful, and then what can justifie his Separation... Or if he judges Conformity to be absolutely Unlawful then his Conscience can allow him sometimes, in that which he owns to be Unlawful; and what must every honest Man think of such a Conscience? 128

What one had to think of such a conscience was, of course, that it barely existed.

`They bring their bodies to us, ' another High Church propagandist commented, `but

leave their Consciences behind them'. If the Dissenters did indeed possess a

'25 Ibid, 18 126 Also see Flaningam, `Occasional Conformity Controversy', 44 127 Leslie, New Association. Part II, 12 128 Astell, Moderation Truly Stated, 34

137 conscience, it was `only an Occasional Conscience, which is a Conscience good for 129 nothing>.

The question of what needed to be done with regard to the Dissenters' questionable consciences represented one of the main themes of High Church rhetoric. Sacheverell, for example, dedicated a substantial part of his Political Union to this issue. `All the Force of Government', he explained, was `deriv'd from, and depending upon the Passions of Shame and 1%ear, and as the Irrst is Rul'd by 130 Conscience, the Latter is Guided by the Laws of it'. The law and an oath of allegiance were not, however, a sufficient measure to keep the individual on the path of righteousness, since they were unable to instil the fear of divine judgement in men's souls. Conscience, in contrast, was the Grand Wheel upon which all Human Actions Turn and Move, and take That away and the most Profligate and Vitious [sic] Dictates of Corrupted Nature shall take place... Strip Mankind of that Troublesome Thing call'd Conscience, which is always ready to cast a Check and Damp upon Their Evil Actions, with the Affrighting Representations of Hell and a Future Judgment, and We shall quickly find what an Ungovernable, '31 Headstrong, Brutal Force, Human Nature and Passion carries in it.

`Unbridl'd by his Reason', Sacheverell continued, man was `Worse even then the

Beasts that perish'. More worryingly, however, once the individual decided to

`Forfeit Their Conscience, Their Allegiance [to the government] is seldom found to keep its Ground. ' Consequently, because they had so openly prostituted their consciences, the Dissenters were not to be trusted. And since there were `no Laws or

Statutes against Thoughts, but Those alone which GOD has enacted' there was only one `Physick to Curb, Correct, and Purge out the foul Distempers and Disorderly Dissenter '32 Passions of the Mind' of a - the Anglican faith. In essence, then, Sacheverell was advocating the end of religious toleration in order to create a nation whose thoughts were controlled entirely by the Church of England. More moderate measures, which merely controlled individual behaviour or the expression of ideas, no

129 Thomas Wagstaff, The Case ofModeration and Occasional Communion Represented by way of Caution to the True Sons of the Church oJ'Angland (1705), 30 130 Sacheverell, Political Union, 18 131 Ibid, 20 132 Ibid, 18,20-23

138 longer appeared satisfactory: the Doctor's vision for the nation was the absolute

dominion of Anglicanism over the consciences of every individual.

Sacheverell's co-religionists readily agreed with this proposal. Startling as it

ought to have appeared, even moderate Anglicans expressed the need for widespread

mind-control: The generality of men must not by any means be left wholly to the workings of their own minds, to the use of their natural faculties, and to the bare convictions of their own reason; but they must be particularly taught and instructed in their duty, must have the motives of it frequently and strongly pressed and inculcated upon them with great authority... 133

Leslie reiterated this point in more colourful terms by claiming that an act preventing

Occasional Conformity would keep the Dissenters from `Mischief and was like taking a `Sword from a Mad-Man, or a Knife from a Child who Cuts his Fingers'. 134

Both of Leslie's examples imply a lack of reason and this unreasonable creature, the

madman or child, needed to be controlled for their own protection as well as that of

others. Some High Church polemicists took this approach to extremes. The author of

The Establishment of the Church the Preservation of the State, for example,

contended that Nonconformity was an `Infection' of the mind which needed to be

cured at all cost. The Act of Toleration was an unchristian `Indulgence' of the

Dissenters' `Disease, and a promoting of their Malady'. Discouraging, with violent

methods and, if necessary, capital punishment, the `dreadful Sin of schism, which is

undeniably prov'd upon them, and allow'd to be Damnable' was in fact a charitable

act because it helped the Dissenters `towards their immortal Happiness and 135 Salvation'. The licentiousness of conscience which the Toleration Act had

established, the author insisted, must be curbed for the protection of religion and state: Were every Man allow'd the Liberty of Living according to his own Opinion, this would certainly produce [a] great variety of Perswasions in Religion take Provision Monsters in ... and effectually away all against Morality and Belief, and give way for Idolatry and Infidelity to set up their Standards136

13 Samuel Clarke, `A Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion' (1706), cited in Dickinson, 53 134 Leslie, New Association, 13 135 Establishment of the Church the Preservation of the State, 3-4,13 136 Ibid, 18

139 Moreover, the liberty of conscience which the Dissenters pleaded for so vigorously cut the `Sinews of all Authority' and was therefore nothing more than a thinly veiled act of resistance to the government. `Shall this Pretence of Conscience in Inferiors', the author wondered, `disannul that invincible obligation upon Governours, to support the Church, secure the State, and reclaim such as are miserably misled? ' The conclusion of the pamphlet promoted the notion that the government, in order to suppress Dissenting minds, should apply all available methods: `Charity and Reason loudly call for a constant use of all such means as may be proper to bridle [the Dissenters'] Folly'. 137

That this aspect of High Church polemics had not escaped Defoe is shown by his comments in his pamphlets. Not only did the High Church zealots endeavour to reduce to a minimum the Dissenters' `Liberties as English men', he remarked in one place, they also wanted to shackle `their Consciences as Christians': `the Pains are 138 Extraordinary', Defoe noted, `which are taken to possess People's Minds. One of Defoe's earliest responses to what he had termed `Ecclesiastick Tyranny' in The 7rue-

Born Englishman was in fact an ironic statement in The Shortest Way: 139`How many

Millions of future Souls we save from Infection and Delusion, if the present Race of poison'd Spirits were purg'd from the Face of the Land'. 140However, Defoe's attempt to expose the true meaning of High Church rhetoric had ended in a high-profile public defeat and his defence of religious toleration had barely moved beyond such general statements as `the Laws of Man have no Sovereignty over the Conscience'. 141

Significantly, while he had produced various justifications of the right of resistance to tyrannical governments, Defoe had not justified the Dissenters' right to toleration in a dedicated treatise, as, for example, John Locke had done with his Letter concerning

Toleration. Jure Divino, as we shall see, was the publication which closed this gap in

Defoe's campaign in defence of Nonconformity. The poem represented Defoe's most extensive counter attack on High Church rhetoric, in particular its preoccupation with

137 Ibid, 18-19 138 Defoe, Peace without Union, 7,11 "' Defoe, True-Born Englishman, 105,1.758 I'M Defoe, The Shortest Way, 105 141 Defoe, A Serious Inquiry, 7

140 dissenting the suppression of consciences. Indeed, it will become apparent that Jure Divino locus was the classicus not only of Defoe's political ideas but also of his justification for the legality of religious dissent.

An interesting point of departure for a consideration of the role of Jure Divino in Occasional Defoe's Conformity campaign is the widely quoted raison d'etre he presented for his verse satire: `This Satyr had never been Publish'd', Defoe told his `had World readers, not the seem'd to be going mad a second Time with the Error of Passive Obedience Non-Resistance' and (35). This statement, scholars have variously pointed out, established an immediate and unambiguous link between Defoe's poem and the recent resurgence of High Church political theories. However, an important and usually neglected aspect of this statement is that it actually represented an dominant expression of one of the rhetorical strategies in Jure Divino: the association of the loss of reason, or madness, with High Tory ideology. This notion and the idea associated of an uncorrupted mind provided the thematic framework for the verse satire.

Defoe's lines, in fact, opening instantly established the issue of liberty of key conscience as a theme of the publication. Jure Divino's dedication represented a panegyric on Defoe's imaginary patron, the `Most Illustrious Lady Reason: First

Monarch of the World'. Queen by divine right, Defoe explained, Reason ruled the in fashion: her world an absolutist government, though not tyrannical, was a `wholly Despotick' and `Uncontroul'd Sovereignty'(33). After praising Reason's `Royal

Justice', Defoe, mimicking High Church rhetoric, demonstratively pledged the Submission Obedience' `Profoundest and to his royal mistress and expressed the hope his that Reason might vindicate work against the `unjust C'ensures' of his opponents dedication Defoe's (34). The served purpose in a number of ways. It offered a brief summary of the two main topics of the Occasional Conformity Controversy: Defoe's Lady Reason highlighted personified the notion of liberty of conscience, while the Reason's drew absolute nature of rule the reader's attention to the matter of political Moreover, by theory. combining these two issues in this way, Defoe appeared to be Anglican acknowledging the traditional notion of a symbiotic relationship between Importantly, however, religion and politics. acknowledging this integral aspect of

141 High Church rhetoric did not of course mean that Defoe agreed with it. The opposite, the dedication showed, was in fact the case: matters of conscience could and should judgements guide man's actions and - this was after all what Defoe was requesting

Reason to do - but the reverse was highly undesirable. If Reason was denied her `Undoubted Divine Right to a Superiority over all the Actions of Men', the result were `Corrupted Men' like the High Church zealots (34). Thus, Defoe's dedication performed three functions at once: it immediately highlighted the subject matter of the

Jure Divino and linked its rhetoric to that of the occasional conformity controversy, it mocked the patriarchal theories of the High-Churchmen (Defoe's first monarch was not Adam but Reason) and associated Tory ideology with a corruption of the mind; finally, it offered an initial statement of Defoe's own position on the question of liberty of conscience.

In the lengthy Preface Defoe then proceeded to offer his most extensive discussion in prose of religious toleration. He began his defence of liberty of conscience by offering an explanation for the question of why the High Churchmen 142 might be taking such extraordinary pains to `possess People's Minds': 'tis evident nothing can serve so naturally to the Hellish Purpose of subduing the Civil Rights of a Nation, as first to captivate their Minds, and infuse Notions of something Sacred, either in the Person or Authority of the Wretch they were to be oppress'd by: Thus the way is made smooth for all the horrid Excursions of the most vicious and encroaching Tyrants in the World (51)

To Defoe, there was a clear link between the High Tory doctrines of divine right and non-resistance and the `evil Spirit' of the recent Occasional Conformity bills. The persecution of Dissent for which the bills had been designed was `born of [the] Civil

Tyranny' of High Tory political ideology, which had now degenerated into the worst plague of all, `Church-Tyranny'. Persecuting `the private Opinions of Men' was not only entirely unchristian, Defoe asserted, but it was also unlawful, since `Toleration is now a Publick Right by Law, as it was before a Right of Conscience' (53,55). Moreover, the Church should expect no gratitude from the Dissenters for the Act. At the Revolution the Dissenters had shown that their religion was `Sound in Doctrine'

142 Defoe, Peace without Union, 11

142 and that they were prepared to defend the constitution and the Church against the

common enemy of Popery. It was because of the Dissenters' willing cooperation that

the Church had agreed to the `Treaty of Union' which was the Toleration Act.

Therefore, this Act was the Dissenters' `free Possession without Homage or Acknowledgement' (55,58,60).

Given that the Preface was addressed to those who agreed with Defoe (and who

therefore already fully understood) that religious toleration was a `Native Liberty' to

which all Protestants were entitled, it is perhaps not surprising to find that he made no

attempt to provide an explanation for his assertion in this section of. Jure IDivino (44,

60). The theoretical justification was reserved for the satirical part of his publication,

in other words, the verse part of the book. Defoe began his defence of Nonconformity

by offering his readers a universal character of humanity in the `Introduction'. Every

human being, the reader learned, was composed of two opposing forces: reason and

the passions. Because humans had a natural propensity to be `tyrants if they cou'd'

(71,1.1), reason regularly lost its struggle with the passions and, as a result, the

individual became deluded by ambition and eventually ruled by vice: Th' enlighten'd Soul, Immortal and Divine, No more in glorious Faculties can Shine; Eclips'd by vicious Principles and Sin, Is Dirt without, and Darkness all within; (72,11.44-47)

The result of vice's absolute power over the individual's `abject Soul' was a creature

entirely void of reason: `A constant Bondage bows his Couchant Neck, His will

corrupted, and his Judgement weak' (73,11.70-1,78). Unable to make rational

judgements, humankind mistakenly let the `Infernal govern the Sublime' and, instead they became `general .of ruling as tyrants, slave[s]' (72,11.61,64), who willingly bore their `Chains' and indeed `hanker[ed] for Slavery' (75,1.140). Therefore, the origins

of all tyrannies could be traced back to one event: the death of reason in the

individual. By explaining all moral evil in these terms, Defoe had not only

constructed a `quintessentially Whiggish world-view', he had also laid the

143 foundations for his attack on the High Church preoccupation with Dissenting 143 minds.

The early books of Jure Divino continued the theme in a less abstract fashion by considering reason's role in the formation of early governments. The fundamental assertion Defoe made here was that, just as God had created humans with an untainted mind in a state of perfect freedom, so he had `prescrib'd no Rules of Government to Man' (78n): to Government, he left him Free, ... as Nature directed: Rules of Politie Needless to Dictate, to his Reason known, 'Twas in himself, the Hint was all his own (108,11.197-200)

God had equipped man with reason in the knowledge that it would offer him infallible guidance with regard to appropriate forms of government. Humankind's corrupt nature, however, had resulted in the frequent abuse of this `Mighty Gift' (117,1.486): Fools that, abandon'dby the Light of Sense, Despise the Substance, worship the Pretence; Contemn their native Right to Liberty, And bow to Bondage, when they may go free. (81,11.92-95)

Given that all humans naturally possessed tyrannical tendencies, there was, once reason had been subdued by vice, only one form of government that seemed appropriate to corrupt minds - absolute, tyrannical monarchies. Unable to recognise the `mighty formal Cheat' which had been placed on the nation, deluded subjects worshipped the `incarnate Devil', their tyrant king, for a saint (81,11.110-111; 83,

11.149,152). More significantly, however, the tyrant began to `Preach the Religion of

Obedience due, To such as no Religion ever knew' (111,11.314-15). It was in fact religion, Defoe contended, which made the tyrant's `Crime compleat' (118,1.528). If an absolute monarch wanted to maintain his arbitrary rule, he needed to perpetuate the corruption of his subjects' minds and the ideal device to achieve this was the imposition on his subjects of a religion which equipped him with the `Mask of Sacred

(118,1.541). Once humankind was `drawn in by [the] Pious Fraud of Words', they obediently `quit their Senses, and their Swords' (142,11.471-72). Custom, the `Bastard

143 Furbank, `Introduction', Satire, Vol. 2,5

144 of Antiquity', subsequently furnished the doctrine of divine right with the authority of precedent and the delusion of the people became self-perpetuating (147,1.29).

The notion that human beings `no Religion ever knew', or, in other words, that mankind had not originally been equipped with a particular religious faith, represented a core concept in Defoe's theory of liberty of conscience. Just as God had refrained from imposing a particular form of government on humankind, so he had left man free with regard to `rules of Worship' (108,1.193). What every human had been `infus'd [with] by Providence', however, were the `immortal Laws of Moral

Right', which functioned as `Guides of Conduct' (107,11.189-90; 108,1.). Once again, it was the use of reason which allowed every individual to recognise and establish a divinely sanctioned form of religious worship: `Reason, abstracted from the Mrs/s of

Sense, / Will read the Darkest Lines of Providence' (132,11.155-56). In a prose footnote, Defoe further elaborated on the importance of reason for the establishment of religions and forms of worship: Reason would either Comprehend and Discuss all the Systems of Religion, or make it appear to be rational that others should be believed, for, to make it reasonable that Faith should supply, is the best Foundation from without, to build Religion upon, and this makes it plain, that Religion is from a Divine Original, that a Man cannot renounce it, but in Opposition to his Reason. (132n)

Defoe's account of the relationship between reason and religion was of course vintage

Puritan thought. The Dissenting sects had split from the Church of England in the belief that she had not taken far enough the reformation of both her liturgy and hierarchy. Many Dissenters felt that the level of mediation offered by the Church was still too high and consequently emphasised the autonomy of individual consciences and, by extension, accepted that every individual enjoyed a personal relationship with God. '44 As we shall see, this intense spiritual individualism had important implications for Defoe's understanding of the applicability of civil laws to matters of religion.

It has been shown that Defoe's concept of political power, and the right to make laws contained in this concept, rested firmly on the importance he assigned to

144 for `Puritans' in The Oxford See entry Companion to British History, J. Cannon ed. (Oxford, 1997), 780-81

145 Defoe, have property. as we seen, argued that it was the possession of property which individual bestowed on the a political voice and the right to determine the legal 145 settlement of his domain. These Freeholders had, by virtue of their property, the direct `Right to who shall, or shall not, live upon [their] Estate, and upon what (174n). Conditions' Other unpropertied inhabitants of his estate, Defoe explained had elsewhere, merely the status of `Sojourners, like Lodgers in a House' and, as a be result, had to content with `such Laws as the Freeholders impose upon them, or 146 else they must remove'.

In Jure Divino Defoe took this theory to the extreme by suggesting that if just one man was `Landlord of the Isle, He must be King'. As the sole owner of the nation, this landlord-monarch enjoyed an absolute and arbitrary rule: `No Laws cou'd ever be on him impos'd' by his disenfranchised subjects because `His Claim of Right, the fore-clos'd'(174,11.72-73,76-77). peoples Claim The tenants of this freeholder were obliged to perform an absolute, passive submission, even to the extent of nakedly baring their `passive Throats' if the Landlord-monarch demanded so: `And if in Lusts he baths and Blood the Land, / We'll cry to Heaven, but not that Lust or Blood withstand' (178,11.214-5,221). Defoe's single freeholder, then, would have had the his right to treat tenants as slaves. In this hypothetical scenario there was no sense of contract between the ruler and the ruled; the political power which this landlord- monarch enjoyed allowed him to lawfully control every aspect of his subjects' lives.

Defoe's example of the single, absolute landlord sits somewhat uncomfortably in the midst of Jure Divino's Whiggish contract and resistance theories. Especially the in relevant sections Book V seem out of place in a treatise which was designed to defeat the High Tory doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. Defoe, however, bringing his was merely theory of property to a logical conclusion. That he did not, in fact, have consider this scenario to any political currency is shown by a number of qualifications of this theory which occur in the book in question and throughout the rest of the verse satire.

145 See above, 134 146 Defoe, Original Power, 121

146 Firstly, Defoe undermined any sense of the validity of the notion of absolute monarchy by immediately pointing out that there was no such landlord-king in the modern world. This `primitive Freeholder' may have existed in the `early Ages' but the absolute power he enjoyed died with him and his immediate successors (180,

11.254-69). Secondly, the relationship between the landlord-king and his subjects was not actually entirely void of binding stipulations. When a tenant wanted to lease a freeholder's land, he was obliged to either accept the conditions offered by his new landlord or `from his impropriate Lands withdraw' (179,1.237). Importantly, however, these conditions constituted a quasi-contract: `Suppose the Landlord imposes other Conditions than the Tenant agreed to, and so injuriously treats him',

Defoe declared, `he may legally contend with his Landlord for the Performance of those Conditions, and compel him to perform [them]' (179n). Thus, the freeholder's power was not as absolute as Defoe's example initially implied.

The third of Defoe's qualification of his property theory was also the most significant limitation he imposed on the landlord-king and one which engaged directly with High Church desires of controlling and suppressing Dissenting minds. God,

Defoe argued, had bestowed on humankind no particular form of government or religion. Instead, he had equipped every individual with the divine gift of reason, which instilled in him the ability to recognise appropriate governmental structures and ways of religious worship. Reason, Defoe asserted throughout Jure Divino, `wou'd tell them what they ought to do'(130,1.104). In addition, reason taught every human the basic law of survival, that is to say to rigidly `adhere to Self-defence': 'Self-

Preservation is the only Law, / That does Involuntary Duly Draw; / It serves for Authority' (134-5,11.242-245). Reason and Indeed, this God-given instinct was so strong, Defoe echoed Hobbes, that 'Self-Loves the Ground of all the things we do' (152,1.173).

In the civil sphere, reason and self-love dictated that governments existed for the good of the people and the protection of the individual's liberty and property. Defoe best (although This, suggested, was not necessarily) achieved through a between contract the governor and the governed, which obliged the magistrate to rule according to the law. Only when the people abandoned their `Sovereign Guide' (130,

147 1.106), reason, could a tyrannical and absolute government be established. With regard to rules of religious worship the matter was somewhat less straightforward, however. Reason was, of course, still the guiding light in matters of religion but, since

`Heaven has thought fit by Silence to direct' (116,1.471), and because there was no equivalent external agent such as property which invested one or several people with the power and right of judgement, there was no authority which could infallible 147 determine the form of worship which would ultimately lead to salvation.

Therefore, in the context of religion, the principle of self-preservation, Defoe explained, demanded that one should not rely on the questionable judgment of another. Every individual needed to hold personally, to quote one of Jure Divino's memorable phrases, the `Scepter of his Mind' (73,1.68), thus turning forms of religious worship into a matter entirely confined to the individual's reason. Indeed, there was, he insisted, `no other Principle [than self-love], either Religious or Civil, that our Love of God is bounded by' (152n). Thus, it was the duty of every man and woman to ensure that their civil actions did not interfere negatively with their conscience, because vowing to abide by something `with which we can't comply, Must be premeditated Perjury' (163,11.464-65). Abusing this God-given liberty of conscience, Defoe reminded his readers, would have serious consequences: `he that disobeys the Heavenly Voice, Is Damn'd of Course, and goes to Hell by Choice. (170, 11.606-7).

The ambiguity surrounding what actually constituted divinely sanctioned religious worship had important implications for the scope of civil law. If religion and its forms of worship were naturally consigned to the private judgements of the individual, the law necessarily had to grant a general liberty of conscience. Enforcing religious laws on free minds was essentially an attempt by man to silence God's voice: if the Laws of Heaven are brought in ... play, And Reason dictates where we should obey; A limited Obedience then comes on, And owns a greater Head than his that wears the Crown

147 Defoe strongly rejected the notion that popes and monarchs were `furnish'd with Infallibility' (205,11.226-7).

148 (164,11.492-995)

felt Defoe, then, clearly that religion did not fall within the realm of civil powers. To him, the freedom of the individual mind was an inalienable natural law. Even the

`absolute Will' of his landlord-monarch, the reader learns, might `be disobey'd' if it encroached on reason, the divine guiding light of our consciences (170n). It was unlawful for the magistrate to interfere with matters of conscience and to restrict the individual `where nature left them free, / And Fright Men with the Mock of Perjury'

(154,11.248-49). Therefore, if the civil peace was to be maintained, Defoe appeared to be warning High Tory politicians, it was in the interest of the government to restrict its powers to the secular sphere: No Man can act, when he desists to Hope; 'Tis Hope of Heaven, for which we Heaven obey, For Fear's a Bondage, not a Loyalty; No Man regards the Law that once despairs, The Madman his expected End prepares; That Government which makes Men hope in vain, May for a Season forc'd Submissions gain, But ne're can long their Loyalty maintain. (152-3,11.184-191)

It was at this point that Defoe's attack on High Church rhetoric came full circle. The social contract, Jure Divino contended, allowed subjects to resist their sovereign if he did not abide by the civil laws. Civil law, however, did not encompass matters of religion, which came under what one might call `divine jurisdiction', of which the central tenet was liberty of conscience. If a monarch attempted to limit the freedom of his subjects' consciences, he was in breach of a law more fundamental than that established by contractual government: God's natural law. Religious tyranny, as the demonstrated, Glorious Revolution had would result in the same outcome as civil absolutism: `The truest Subject will to Truth Appeal, And if that Truth's opprest, in (156,11.302-3). Furthermore, Truth Rebel' the right of all law-abiding subjects to a had been liberty of conscience openly acknowledged at the Revolution in the form of Toleration Act and this right had been reiterated in the Queen's speech (55,228n).

Yet, the recent High Church campaign against Occasional Conformity had represented a blatant attempt to `Hood wink Sense, and make the Judgment blind'

149 (228,1.357). The efforts of `Clergy-Heroes' like Sacheverell and Leslie to severely limit liberty of conscience and suppress Nonconforming minds had one purpose only, the establishment of a new tyranny (229,1.396; 341 n): They that the Soul and Body separate, Murther the Man, and so conclude his Fate; They that the King and People wou'd divide, Murther the State, and Constitution's void (326,11.257-60)

The desire of some extreme Anglicans to separate the Dissenters' minds from their bodies was thus also an attack on the very foundations of the nation. Indeed, the entire

High Church campaign, Defoe pointed out, was riddled with contradictions. The

Anglican zealots might have masked their language with `false Zeal' and `double

Speech' in order to `delude' Queen Anne, but their repeated assertions that the

Dissenters `must not by any means be left wholly to the workings of their own minds, to the use of their natural faculties, and to the bare convictions of their own reason' nevertheless betrayed the true meaning of their words: 148persecution, `jarring Unions' and `bloody Peace' (340,11.573-79). In this sense, Defoe mused, one might actually view the Occasional Conformity controversy as representing `in Miniature, What all the World's Disasters do procure' (229,11.412-13), the establishment of tyrannical governments through a corruption of the subjects' reason. Where The Shortest Way's satirical exaggeration of High Church language had ended in what may be described as a rhetorical failure, Jure Divino, by engaging with, and analysing in detail, one of the dominant themes of Anglican anti-Dissent propaganda, made a strong case for the fundamental right to liberty of conscience of all Protestant subjects.

While Jure Divino triumphantly celebrated the defeat of the fourth, and for the time being, last, Occasional Conformity bill in 1704, High Church polemicists continued to demand tirelessly the extirpation of religious nonconformity. 149While

Sacheverell took his anti-Dissent campaign to pulpits up and down the land, Leslie expounded his High Tory views in his newspaper, The Rehearsal. During subsequent years, the themes of High Church propaganda, as Holmes has pointed out, remained

148 Clarke, `Discourse', 53 149 See especially Book XI, 340-44.

150 150 largely unchanged. Indeed, the repetitive nature of High Church rhetoric had a certain numbing effect on the nation and, despite their extremism, the ravings of

High-Church preachers became such a regular feature of the politico-religious spectrum that they no longer caused much of a stir in high politics.

Defoe's confident assertion that High Church plans for an abolition of religious toleration had been an `abortive Project' and been `dash'd by Wisdom' (341,11.620,

629) once and for all did, however, turn out to be premature. On the 5 November

1709, Guy Fawkes' day and the anniversary of William of Orange's landing at

Torbay, Sacheverell once again decided to hang out `the bloody flag and banner of defiance' against the Dissenters and the new Whig government in a sermon preached at St. Paul's cathedral. The printed version of the sermon appeared under the title The

Perils of False Brethren and in it, Sacheverell, in his usual fiery manner, attacked the

Dissenters for being `Profess'd and Inveterate Enemies' to Church and state and 151 launched a personal attack on Godolphin, the Whig secretary of state.

Sacheverell's sermon quickly gained immense popularity throughout England, selling almost 100,000 copies and thus guaranteeing a readership of at least 250,000 152 people. The Whig government felt that it could not be seen to remain inactive in the face of such a vicious attack on their political principles as well as their

Nonconforming allies and decided to bring impeachment proceedings for `high crime and misdemeanour' against the Doctor. The trial, which the Whig government had hoped would allow them to defend the Revolution settlement and restate their political doctrines in a high profile context, became a legal disaster for the Whigs, as they 153 failed to prove the allegations they had made against Sacheverell. Rather than silence the High Church Tories, the entire affair, accompanied by wide-spread popular rioting in support of the Doctor, raised anxieties about the state of the Church '54 to a `higher pitch than ever'. The outcome of the trial constituted a painful defeat

150 Geoffrey Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973), 51 151 Henry Sacheverell, The Perils of False Brethren, both in Church and State (London, 1709), 6-7 152 Holmes, Trial, 75 153 Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 138 154 Holmes, 104

151 for the Whig government. While the Lords did in fact judge Sacheverell to be guilty by a vote of 69-52, the punishment which the Doctor received - he was forbidden to for his burned by preach three years and sermon was the common hangman - was so light that his supporters celebrated the verdict as a victory. The Whigs agreed. Robert

Walpole, one of the Whig managers, typically stated that the `punishment was ' 55 reduced very low this day... they had as good as acquitted him'. In the end, instead of strengthening the Whig interest, Sacheverell's trial, as one historian has noted,

`demonstrated the immense advantage the Tories enjoyed in regard to the religious ' 56 sentiments of the political nation'. Worse for Dissenters, however, the High Church backlash which followed the Sacheverell affair not only resulted in the downfall of the Whig ministry, it also eventually enabled the Tories to pass into law a new

Occasional Conformity Bill (1711), as well as the Schism Bill (1714), which was designed to destroy the Dissenters' much valued educational system. 157

What has become obvious, then, is that Jure I)ivino's themes and rhetoric can be linked directly and immediately to the contents of recent High Church pamphlets against religious dissent. Rather than restricting its commentary on the Occasional

Conformity controversy to only a general level, as the editor of the most recent edition of the poem has contended, the rhetoric of Defoe's verse satire rested on one of the main themes of Anglican extremist argument, the importance of reason. This strategy, as the chapter has shown, allowed Defoe simultaneously to refute the Tory doctrines of divine right and passive obedience and to establish his own theory accounting for the Dissenters' right to religious toleration. The Occasional

Conformity controversy is thus at least as important for our understanding of the nature of Defoe's literary undertaking in Jure Divino as Clarendon's History.

155 Walpole to Cardonnel, 21 March 1710, cited in J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, Volume I (London, 1956), 150 156 J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675-1725 (Harmondsworth, 1967), 158-59 157 Harris, 154; Holmes, 104

152 Chapter IV

`That his Conduct might be rectified': Jacobitism, Social Unrest and The Family Instructor.

153 It is too to that Defoe, 1706, to be Beside lure not much say after ceased a poet. . 1)ivino, he published a further three verse tracts towards the end of that year, but the verse satire was essentially Defoe's last extensive poetic undertaking. ' The main reason for this is perhaps that Jure Divino did not fulfil Defoe's expectations from an artistic and economic point of view. The first edition of poem was marred by numerous misspellings and by mis-pagination. Worse perhaps, the unusually high level of repetition, as Backscheider has pointed out, actually threatened to undermine the hoped-for accumulative effect of Defoe's political message in some place. 2

Moreover, the failure of some subscribers to pay the first instalment had delayed the publication of Jure Divino and a cheaper pirated edition appeared a day before its publication date - no profit was to come from his most important work in verse. Lastly, as a result of his imprisonment and public humiliation in the pillory, Defoe's subscribers refused to have their names printed on the page usually reserved for this purpose. The project of Jure Divino had thus ended in painful disappointment and it is ' likely that this played a significant role in Defoe's move away from verse.

In addition, Defoe became increasingly preoccupied with producing propaganda for his employers, Harley and Godolphin. In 1706, Harley sent his writer to

Edinburgh where he was to promote the proposed union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland, a lengthy campaign which eventually culminated in The History of the 4 Union of Great Britain (171 0). Once the Act of Union was passed in May 1707,

Defoe's pamphlet output steadily decreased until it `dropped to nearly nothing' during

1708 and 1709. Similarly, his Review `meandered among a number of familiar 5 topics'. Between December 1709 and the spring of 1710, Defoe, now employed by

Godolphin, used his newspaper to support the Whig ministry through the turbulent days of the Sacheverell crisis, which eventually earned him the title of `Champion for

The poems in question are The Vision, A Reply to the Scots Answer, to the British Vision and Caledonia. 2 Backscheider, 189 Ibid, 189-193 For Defoe's campaign in favour of union see Downie, Harley, 76-77; Backscheider, 203-26; Novak, Chapter 13; Volume 4 of Political and Economic Writings. Backscheider, 262

154 6 the Cause and Party'. After the fall of the Whig government, Defoe once more sought and found employment with Harley, leader of the incoming Tory ministry.

Initially, Defoe's task was to calm Whig anxieties over the credit crisis and defend

Harley's moderate stance from the attacks of the High Tory pressure group, the

October Club. However, an arguably more important project was to follow in the propaganda campaign in support of Harley's peace policy between 1711-13.7 Beside the task of loyally defending the government's plans and actions, Defoe functioned as the `ministerial whipping-boy' who shielded his fellow propagandist Jonathan Swift 8 from the attacks of party hacks. By the time Harley resigned from his post and retired from high politics in July 1714, Defoe had been widely discredited both as a polemicist and as a private man.

The self-styled `True-Born Englishman', whose poem of the same name had bestowed near-celebrity status on him in 1701, was now regularly confronted with the accusation of being little more than a Janus-faced hack. The readily apparent changes in the political stance of the Review had publicly documented Defoe's alternation between Tory and Whig employers and earned him the label of political turncoat. `De

Foe is very vacillant and often changes sides', one of Defoe's contemporaries asserted typically, while another contended that he was an `Animal who shifts his Shape offner than Proteus, and goes backwards and forwards like a Hunted Hare, a thorough- pac'd, true-bred Hypocrite, an High-Church-Man one Day, and a Rank Whig the 9 next'. Not content with deriding his political and journalistic credentials, Defoe's fellow journalists went as far as citing `such base actions as horse theft and

`We have got at last, when no Body thought it' in Whig and Tory. or Wit on both Sides. Being a Collection of Poems by the Ablest Pens of the High and Low Parties, upon the Most Remarkable Occasions, from the Change of Ministry, to this Time Vol. III (1712), 38; also see Downie, Harley, 124. For accounts of Defoe's part in the peace campaign sec Downie, Harley, Chapter 6, and Lawrence Postan III, `Defoe and the Peace Campaign, 1710-1713: A Reconsideration, ' Huntington Library Quarterly 27 (1963-64), 1-20 Downie, Harley, 148 9 The Author [James Webster] of the Lawful Prejudices Defended (1707), cited in Pat Rogers ed., Defoe. The Critical Heritage (London & Boston, 1972), 11; Judas Discuvr'd, and Catch'd at last: Or, Daniel de The in Lobs Pound (1713), cited in Political & Economic Writings, Vol. 1,1

155 cuckolding a friend' as evidence for his depraved character. 1° Prints depicting Defoe's

`Deformed head in the Pillory' were still being published almost a decade after the event, drawing attention to his `dirt besmeare'd' appearance, his `ugly frightful' face and his `black' conscience, while inviting the reader to `take a Throw' at him. " One of Defoe's fellow journalists, John Tutchin, had died after a severe beating in 1707, so the author of the above lines may well have had in mind an attack which went beyond 12 the purely verbal. After all, few would mourn the loss of a fawning, canting double hearted Knave' who was `One hour a Whig and the next hour a Tory'. ' 3

With his reputation at an absolute low point, Defoe, after his immersion in the affairs of high politics for over two decades and having composed hundreds of pamphlets designed to shape public opinion, produced his longest piece of writing yet,

The Family Instructor (1715). That fact that this text was ostensibly designed to aid the re-introduction of regular family worship is perhaps not surprising, since Defoe had previously expressed a concern over moral standards and social conduct in publications such as The Poor Man's Plea (1698) and Reformation of Manners

(1702). What may be considered unusual though is the timing of the book's publication and its format. Why, one has to wonder, did Defoe spend a considerable amount of time and effort on a text of over 400 pages which seemed to be concerned exclusively with domestic religious issues, when his professional and personal life was in considerable turmoil and he was experiencing `deep and dreadful Afflictions' ?14

Defoe scholars have proposed a number of explanations for the impulse behind

The Family Instructor. Backscheider, for example, has suggested that the testing times

Defoe was experiencing `helped awaken his spirituality' and that the book was evidence of his own `living faith'. Moreover, Backscheider advances the notion that, because Defoe's children `were at critical ages', The Eämily Instructor was `probably

10 Backscheider, 349 11 A reproduction of a print which appeared in the Whig's Medley in 1711 may be found in J. Sutherland, Defoe (New York & London, 1971), 81. 12 Downie, Harley, 103; also see Holmes, 32-3, for the occupational hazards of eighteenth-century journalism. 13 The Weekly Journal; or, British Gazetteer (8 November 1718) 14 G. H. Healey (ed), The Letters of Daniel Defoe (Oxford, 1955), 449

156 partly written as a guide' for them and that some parts `may record some of his own experiences' with his children, such as the section on parental attempts to discipline 15 older teenagers. In a similar vein but taking a somewhat wider view, Novak sees the origins of Defoe's conduct book in the spiritual depravity of the age: `Until the end of his life, Defoe thought that contemporary Britain with its heretics, deists, and atheists formed a kind of wilderness through which the true Christian was forced to '6 wander... The Family Instructor [was] calculated to war against such dangers'. John

Richetti offers a yet more wide-ranging approach by stating that the book was Defoe's response to `what he saw as pressing social and moral issues'. Without specifying what exactly these issues were, Richetti asserts that the purpose of The Family

Instructor was to `highlight resolute patriarchal authority' and provide a `model family group under reawakened paternal authority'. "

The most common and widely accepted view of Defoe's conduct book is, however, that its origins lie in the passage of the Schism Act of 1714. This view has been propounded most forcefully by IN. Rothman who has variously asserted that

The Family Instructor was a `major document in continued opposition to the Schism

Act' and, indeed, that it was Defoe's `ultimate act of opposition' to the High-Church 18 piece of legislation. On close inspection, however, Rothman's hypothesis does not prove convincing. Defoe, as this chapter will show, was no longer concerned with the

Schism Act at the time of the book's composition and had, in fact, come to regard the act as a toothless piece of legislation. What had begun to preoccupy Defoe, however, was the re-emergence of Jacobitism, which had become a `continual destabilising 19 force in British politics under the later Stuarts'. A detailed analysis of the political

is Backscheider, 360-62 '6 Novak, 484 17 John Richetti, `The Family, Sex, and Marriage in Defoe's Moll handers and Roxana', Studies in the Literary Imagination 15:2 (1982), 20-21 'B Rothman, `Response', 212; idem, 'Defoe's Family Instructor in Glasgow: Dissent and the Schism Act', Notes and Queries 31 (September, 1984), 386; it might be noted that the link between Defoe's conduct book and the Schism Act was first made by B. G. Ivanyi. See Ivanyi's brief essay 'Defoe's Prelude to the Family Instructor', Times Literary Supplement, 7 April 1966,312. Scholars who have endorsed lvanyi and Rothman's view more recently include Novak, 483, and Backscheider, 361. 19 Hams, 208

157 rhetoric of The Family Instructor demonstrates that Defoe's conduct book was his response to the widespread Jacobite-inspired popular unrest which characterised the period 1714-16. As such, The Family Instructor represented an important political act.

In order to provide a sufficient context for this type of analysis, the chapter will begin with a prolonged general discussion of the extent and impact of Jacobite sympathies in Britain, before considering Defoe's reaction in his pamphlets to this subversive movement.

The first high tide of Jacobitism occurred during the early years of the reign of

William III but, whilst it saw a flurry of plotting and conspiracy, the movement's lack of an organisational framework and firm social base meant that it remained largely 2° unsuccessful. After the accession of Queen Anne, Jacobitism suffered a temporal eclipse, largely due to the wide-spread belief amongst High Churchmen that their hopes could now be realised without a restoration of the Pretender, James Frances

Edward. However, with High Church desires left unfulfilled, the Tory triumph in the

Sacheverell trial triggered a second significant wave of Jacobite activity in England and Wales between 1710-15.21 The unpopularity of the Whigs and a general turn towards Toryism resulted in the party's overwhelming election victory of 1710, bringing with it a correlated rise in Jacobite MPs. Moreover, with James 11's reign having become little more than a distant memory, the unpopular prospect of another Act Settlement foreign king - the of had determined that the Elector of Hanover, Anne Georg Ludwig, was to succeed - generated a sense of nostalgia around the deposed king's exiled son amongst large sections of the British population. Thus, during the last years of Anne's reign the Jacobites not only enjoyed a greater presence

20 Rose, 48-54; Harris, 218 21 There is some disagreement amongst historians concerning the dating of the second period of increased Jacobite activity. G. V. Bennett suggests the period 1710-15 ['English Jacobitism, 1710-1715: Myth and Reality', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, 32 (1982)1, which I have adopted; P. K. Monod proposes 1714-23 [Jacobitism and the English people, 1688-1788 (Cambridge, 1989), 111; Hayton refers to the years 1711-14 [Commons Vol. 1,478]. Importantly for this study, the year of the composition of volume one of The Family Instructor, 1714, is included in all three suggestions.

158 at the centre of politics, they also found a cultural climate which allowed them to 22 express their political convictions more openly than perhaps ever before.

The question of what actually made someone a `Jacobite' is, of course, itself problematic, since the level and nature of support for James varied drastically: some Jacobite sympathisers `refused to take oaths, some even became involved in plots to restore James II and his son; others did nothing but drink toasts or purchase engraved glass with subversive emblems, or did nothing at all. '23 Indeed, by the end of Anne's reign, those Jacobites who `looked with more than sentimental interest across the

Channel' and who firmly subscribed to divine-right monarchy and Stuart legitimism had become a minority within the Jacobite movement. 24 In contrast, the majority of those who displayed at least some sympathy for the `king over the water' rested their

Jacobitism on political expedience, appropriating the movement to express their growing disillusionment with developments after 1688.25 Thus, popular Jacobitism during the final years of Anne's reign largely represented an ideology of opposition instead of an expression of sincerely felt loyalty for the exiled Stuarts.

Yet, while individuals might have had widely differing reasons for expressing their support for James, the Jacobite movement in its entirety began to be perceived as a real threat to the English succession as established by law. For a substantial period of time during the final years of Anne's reign, both James' supporters and their Hanoverian opponents felt that the prospect of a future king James Ill was becoming increasingly more real. A number of political developments appeared to offer conclusive evidence for this view. The winter of 1711-12 had seen an open breach between the Tory ministry and the Elector of Hanover over the peace negotiations 26 with France. Subsequently, a growing number of discontented, pro-Hanoverian Tory MPs deserted the government, thus weakening its ability to control parliament. To compensate for the losses, the leader of the ministry, Harley (now Earl of Oxford),

22 Harris, 219 23 Hayton, Commons Vol. 1,476 24 Hatton, 130,172 25 Hams, 210,228-9; also D. Szcchi, The Jacobites. Britain and Europe 1688-1788 (Manchester & New York, 1994), 24-25,75 26 Holmes, 93-4

159 began to negotiate with the Jacobite court in France with the aim of securing the support of the 50 or so British parliamentary Jacobites, who had begun to act as an independent unit in the Commons. Is was not until early 1714 that James turned to other men for support, after realising that Harley's repeated promises of advancing a plan for his official acknowledgment as Anne's lawful successor had never been 27 sincere.

Moreover, the government's repeated contact with the Jacobite court and its clandestine peace negotiations with France, in particular Henry St John's close association with the French Foreign Minister Torcy, raised fears among the Whigs and the Hanoverian Tories that, despite its assurances to the contrary, the ministry would disregard the Act of Settlement and offer the British throne to James on the

Queen's death. In their eyes, the breach between the government and the House of

Hanover had clearly shown Harley and his ministry to be drifting towards a Jacobite solution to the succession. Outside parliament, all sections of society, Defoe noted, became preoccupied with the possibility of a future king James III. 28 By the spring of

1714 it was widely believed that the government had indeed produced a detailed plan for a Jacobite coup on Anne's death, which was supported even by the queen herself. 29 One Whig ballad of this period, entitled `A Peace, which our Hanover's

Title destroys', gave expression to this perception by urging, `Hast over, Hanover, 30 fast as you can over; / Put in your Claim, before 'tis too late ,. With the queen's health deteriorating rapidly in 1713, `something like panic' spread through the nation and even the best-informed observers were `convinced that civil war was 3' inevitable'. The succession, as one pro-Hanoverian commentator noted, was `the 32 circumstance that sits heaviest upon the hearts of all thinking and serious men'.

27 D. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics (Edinburgh, 1984), 182-91 28 Daniel Defoe, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover (1713), xx 29 Holmes, 93-94; Bennett, `English Jacobitism', 138 30 Cited in Andrew Starkie, `William Law and Cambridge Jacobitism, 1713-16, ' Historical Research 75: 190 (November 2002), 456 31 Ibid 32 Edmund Gibson to Bishop Nicolson, 10 June 1712, cited in Holmes, 55

160 Jacobite writers naturally seized on the wave of popular support for James, exuding `an air of confidence and impending triumph' in their publications. 33 Formal

Jacobite tracts, such as George Harbin's well-known The Hereditary Right to the

Crown of England (1713), continued the revival of the High Church theories of divine 34 right and passive obedience which Sacheverell's trial had initiated. In this context, the notion that hereditary right was the only legal claim to the country's throne necessarily became a focal point for pro-Stuart propagandists. Declaring the Act of

Settlement void, Harbin asserted that `the Kings of England have Regal Authority, before a Parliament is called: Their Authority therefore is not the Product or Effect of 35 Parliament'. The Revolution settlement, he continued, therefore had no implications for the succession, because `the Deposition of a lawful King... is Unlawful and Null'.

Harbin's conclusion confidently outlined the seemingly inevitable: All that I shall here observe is, that whatever Power Kings, with their Parliaments, may have de Jure... it is however true in 1"äcl, that no Act of Limitation could ever yet effectually exclude the next Heir by Proximity of Blood; but sooner or later, Providence has hitherto so ordered it, that those who were first in Line of Descent, have at length gain'd the Crown, notwithstanding all Parliamentary Provisions to the Contrary. 36

Defoe's old enemy, Charles Leslie, echoed these sentiments almost verbatim. In The

Old English Constitution he wrote that `the Succession of the Crown of England by the Laws of God and Nature is inseparably annexed to proximity of Blood;... all

Statute-Laws [i. e. the Act of Settlement] contrariant to the Laws of God and Nature " are Ipso facto null and void'. Just as Harbin had done, Leslie was predicting that the return of a Stuart king was inevitable: It is the very Footstep of a Law founded in Nature, that a King displac'd is never in a State of Rest, till it be reduced to its Native Centre. For tho' human Laws may be worn out by Desuetude or tacit Consent, yet the Institutions of Nature will never be abolish'd by the longest Tracts of

33 Bennett, `English Jacobitism', 138; idem, Tory Crisis, 174 34 Holmes, xxxii 35 George Harbin, The Hereditary Right to the Crown of England (1713), 5 36 Ibid, 6,185 37 Charles Leslie, The Old English Constitution, In Relation to the Hereditary Succession of the Crown Antecedent to the Revolution in 1688 (1714), 3

161 time, but will retain their natural Inclination of returning; and of this kind is the Law of Succession to the Crown by the Heir 39 right .

The Jacobite movement was thus an unstoppable force of nature, which would give

back to James that which was rightfully his. The Revolution and its legal settlement,

Stuart legitimists believed, had been `a gigantic fraud perpetrated on a supine nation',

but the republican conspiracy of the Whigs was soon to be exploded to herald a new Stuart age.39

The Jacobite pamphleteers were of course asserting nothing new; the legitimacy

of the events of 1688-89, and by implication William Ill's right to the English throne,

had been questioned in innumerable High Tory and Jacobite pamphlets during the

past two decades, and the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience had already

seen one revival at the turn of the century. 40 Whig writers, including Defoe, had

countered these publications with their own political treatises, both in the form of prose pamphlets and satirical verse. There was, however, one significant difference which made the resurgence of Jacobite sympathies at the end of Anne's reign a far more potent force, namely its popular element briefly referred to above. After the queen's fragile health had taken another turn for the worse, even the ordinary people of England realised that soon the country would be faced with `its great decision'. 4'

Significantly, the prospect of welcoming George I, Elector of Hanover, to the

English throne was not a popular one. The accession of the House of Hanover was to dynasty, end the reign of the Stuart which had ruled over 300 years in some parts of the United Kingdom and which still held a sentimental appeal to many people. The fewer fact that there were no than 58 other excluded (Catholic) candidates with a more immediate claim to the throne did little to improve the Elector's popularity. In addition, George's physical appearance failed to endear him to his English subjects: he was relatively short, possessed a long and pointed nose, and often wore a wooden

3" Ibid, 6 39 Revolution Principles, Kenyon, 159. Kenyon makes this statement with reference to Charles Hornsby's A Caveat against the Whigs in a Short Historical View of Their Vols. 1-4, (1710-14). Transactions, Homsby's sentiments may be seen as Jacobite representative of the attitude toward the events of the last two decades. 10 Clark, English Society, 123-24; also sec Chapter Ill 41 Bennett, Tory Crisis, 173

162 42 expression on his face during public engagements. On these occasions, moreover, his manner could be `formal, stiff and cold, sometimes positively ice'. 43 The king's perceived distance from his English subjects and his inability to speak English led some contemporary commentators, most famously Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, to the new king's intellectual capacities describe him 'blockhead 44 question and as a . Finally, George's public image was shaped further by a `sinister' aspect of his personal life: whilst not scrupling to keep mistresses himself, he had divorced his wife for an alleged act of infidelity and subsequently kept her permanently confined. 45

Popular hostility towards the House of Hanover represented a potential area of significant growth for the Jacobite movement and from 1714, Jacobite agitators made a concerted effort to exploit latent anti-Hanoverian sentiments amongst the lower classes through `itinerant "singing men", who performed seditious ballads and poems' 46 in alehouses and taverns. Similarly to Leslie's and Harbin's recent publications, they simply revisited and extended old ground. The first wave of Jacobitism in the early

1690s had produced numerous ballads and songs or revived older verse, such as the notorious Civil War song, `The King shall enjoy his own again', which were dispersed by James II's supporters to a popular audience in order to animate 47 `discontented persons... to rise in the holydayes'. In the political and cultural climate of the final years of Anne's reign the public expression of Jacobite sympathies had once again become acceptable, and this traditional, essentially oral form of asserting one's allegiance seemed the ideal vehicle to bring Jacobitism to the people.

Significantly, popular forms of verse had one important advantage over polished propaganda tracts: their lack of theoretical content meant that their message was often simple and therefore easily internalised. For example, the recurring Jacobite theme of

42 Hatton, 170-171 43 W. A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England 1714-1760 (London, 1977), 172 44 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, `Account of the Court of George 1', A. Browning (cd) English Historical Documents (London, 1953), 100; in his foreword to the new edition, Jeremy Black highlights that Hatton was mistaken in claiming that George was able to speak English. See Hatton, 2 45 Speck, Stability and Strife, 172 46 Monod, Jacobitism, 48; the following account of Jacobite verse is based on Monod, 45-69. 47 Ibid, 47,172

163 (an the rightful monarch allusion to the three most recent Stuart monarchs, Charles I,

James II and now James 111)entirely at the mercy of a powerful Satanic faction (the

Civil War parliamentarians and their successors, the Whigs) not only absolved the from people as a whole complicity in the sin of rebellion but, by identifying a distinct group of malicious conspirators, offered a highly emotive target for popular little discontent which needed further justification. The symbolic leaders of the Whig faction were of course the men who had usurped the place of God's anointed, William

III and George I. Predictably, both men were regularly depicted as devils in Jacobite cosmology: while William represented a sinister, Satanic parricide who showed signs George of a sexual aberration, was `more of a mischievous, saturnalian imp', a cuckolded fool and `second-rate substitute for king' 48 In James a . contrast, was regularly associated with the figure of the `lost lover' in a story of unrequited love or, more significantly, regarded as a Christ-like figure, who, like his biblical counterpart, had been betrayed and disowned, but would rise again to reclaim his divinely ordained status. Therefore, some Jacobite poets claimed, a Stuart restoration was in fact the `religious duty' of the nation. By 1714, popular Jacobite verse had moulded

James into the `fairy tale monarch' which George would never become. In a telling reflection of contemporary anti-Hanoverianism, disaffected Londoners had embraced

Jacobite verse and its political extremism so eagerly by 1716 that ballad-hawking reached epidemic proportions, prompting an official response from the Lord Mayor. 49

Popular disaffection did not merely express itself in Jacobite pamphlets, ballads and songs, however, as the country experienced a series of serious public disturbances between 1714-16. The first significant anti-Hanoverian unrest occurred on 20 October

1714, the day of George's coronation. In over twenty towns in the south, west and, to a lesser extent, north of England, loyalist celebrations were disrupted by discontented 50 mobs. On the surface, the disturbances were High Church rather than Jacobite in

48 lbid, 55,57,59 49 Ibid, 47-8,53,63-5; Nicholas Rogers, `Popular Protest in Early Hanoverian London', Past and Present 79 (1978), 70 so Monod, Jacobitism, 173-79; Monod's assertion that the coronation riots were restricted to southern and western regions of England has recently been shown to be incorrect. There least were at three outbursts of popular protest in the north (Liverpool, York Durham) and in 1714, all of which came in response to the

164 nature: slogans typically celebrated the High Church icon Henry Sacheverell, expressed strongly xenophobic and anti-Whig sentiments and insulted the new king.

As the traditional allies of the regicidal Whigs, the Dissenters naturally attracted the in rioters' attention and, addition to verbal abuse, some meeting houses were damaged. While overt proclamations of Stuart loyalty were relatively rare, there can be little doubt, as Monod has pointed out, that the protestors were fully aware that 51 their actions boosted the hopes of James and his supporters. Remarkably, London, which had become a `stronghold of militant Toryism' since the Sacheverell trial, remained `strikingly immune from large-scale demonstrations', largely due to organised militia patrols and the public recognition of Hanover by leading Tory politicians, such as Harley and St. John. 52

In 1715, public disturbances became more severe and more openly Jacobite.

The General Election during January and February resulted in a Whig triumph, which had only been possible because of the fragmentation of the Tory party and George's purge of Tory office holders following the death of Anne. 53 The previous two elections of 1710 and 1713 had in fact produced convincing Tory majorities, indicating the overwhelming strength of public support enjoyed by the party. 54

Significantly, however, the Whig victory at the polls had `not filtered down the social scale' and Tory supporters who had already been angered by the king's actions were further aggrieved by the ministry's plan to impeach Anne's Tory ministers. 55 Some prominent Tory leaders became so desperate that they approached James with an offer 56 of support for a rising in the west of England.

From the spring of 1715 every public anniversary precipitated flamboyantly anti-ministerial demonstrations. On 8 March, the anniversary of William III's death

accession and coronation of George 1. See J. D. Oates, `Jacobitism and Popular Disturbances in Northern England, 1714-1719', Northern History 41: 1 (2004), 114, 51 Monod, Jacobitism, 174 52 Rogers, `Popular Protest', 70-1,83 53 W. A. Speck, `The General Election of 1715, ' English Historical Review 90 (1975), Holmes'essay 507-22; also see `Harley, St John and the Death of the Tory Party' in Politics, Religion and Society, 139-60. s' Harris, 199 55 Rogers, `Popular Protest', 73 s6 Monod, Jacobitism, 179-80

165 Anne's and accession, a public demonstration to commemorate the late Stuart queen by bell-ringing was accompanied and flag-waving. On 23 April supporters of the late lit bonfires ministry and noisily celebrated the anniversary of Anne's coronation, intimidating consuming wine, residents and parading through the streets of London Church shouting High slogans. Some of the banners displayed on this occasion hinted at the rumour that Anne had agreed to a restoration of James. Six days later the birthday of the Duke of Ormond offered the next opportunity for public demonstrations. The Tories' beloved general had become a symbol of the party's peace policy and was revered for his for probity; he had also been one of George's dismissals. Bonfires lit 57 first were to shouts of `High Church and Ormonde'. It might be Ormonde's remarked that popularity has been shown to have been short-lived and that his political influence was less than previously 58 assumed.

While the early demonstrations of 1715 were relatively well-controlled and still mainly attacked the new government rather than the new king, the nation-wide riots of

28-29 May were characterised by an increasing violence and an openly Jacobite stance. Incidents of fighting occurred between pro-Hanoverians who were celebrating George's birthday on the twenty-ninth and Jacobite rioters who cried `No Hanoverian, 59 No Presbyterian government' and demanded a second restoration. The celebrations following day, Restoration of the day, reinforced the connection between the riots and As popular Jacobitism. on the previous day, James III was proclaimed, effigies of the Oliver symbol of Puritanism, Cromwell, and prints of William III were burnt, the windows of those who refused to illuminate them in support of a Stuart restoration were broken, and nonconformist meeting-houses systematically gutted and set alight.

Similar demonstrations of popular disaffection and Stuart loyalty occurred on 10 June, James' birthday. 60

57 Ibid, 180; George Rude, Hanoverian London 1714-1808 (London, 1971), 207 5" D. Hayton, `Dependence, clientage and affinity: the political following of the second Duke Ormonde, ' in T. Barnard of and J. Fenlon (eds), The Dukes of Ormonde 1610- 1745 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001), 211-242 59 Monod, Jacobitism, 181 60 Rogers, `Popular Protest', 72-73; Monod, Jacobilism, 181-83; Oates, `Jacobitism', 199-20

166 1715 By July the Whig government had become so alarmed by the Jacobite- inspired disturbances it hastily that passed the draconian Riot Act, which stated that, `if twelve or more persons, tumultuously assembled, refused to disperse within one hour of a magistrate reading a proclamation, they would be guilty of felony and could face death 61 Yet, the penalty'. the Whigs' efforts to curb popular unrest only served to further inflame the situation and the riots continued 62 In Scottish discontent . addition, with the Union and English policy was steadily growing and many embittered Scots Jacobitism. Their turned to wish to reverse the Union eventually culminated in a Hanoverian major challenge to the monarchy, the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. For a brief least, time at there was a very real prospect that Scotland would `quickly and become Jacobite completely a stronghold and the nation's independence re- 63 established'.

That the resurgence of Jacobitism would draw a response from Defoe is hardly surprising, given that, as one scholar has shown, an `unrelenting opposition to

Jacobitism' was a constant aspect of his life as a political writer. 64 Between February Defoe launched and April 1713, a sustained attack on the idea that Britain could benefit from a Stuart restoration in a series of three pamphlets, entitled Reasons Succession against the of the House of Hanover; And What If the Pretender should come?; and An Answer to a Question that No Body thinks of, viz. But what if the Queen should die? The first two pamphlets may be viewed as Defoe's highly ironical response to the Jacobite habit of fashioning James into a fairy tale monarch. A 1714 tract by Charles Leslie provides a useful brief summary of the attributes generally assigned to the exiled Stuart by his British supporters. Beside his commendable James, physical characteristics, unlike George 1, had a `graceful mien' and an exact firm understanding of merciful, yet kingship. According to Leslie, he was `always `thoughtful' `very cheerful', and affable', with a `visible magnanimity of spirit', `good `sweetness sense', of temper' and `no sort of bigotry about him'. In short,

61 Cannon (ed), Oxford Companion to British History, 808 62 Rude, Hanoverian London, 207-8 63 Hoppit, Land ofLiberty?, 253-55,392-94 64 David Macarec, Daniel Defoe and the Jacobite Movement (Salzburg, 1980), 1

167 James was nobody's fool but, at the same time, no British Protestant had to fear this benevolent man, whose `principles are true to monarchy and safe for government'. 65 Defoe, disagreed. predictably, The notion that a future king James III would not in his father's footsteps follow and abolish the Protestant religion was laughable, especially in the light of his refusal to renounce his Catholicism and join the Anglican Church. In demonstrate order to just how absurd the Jacobites' idealised picture of James was, Defoe resorted to extreme irony and hyperbole. Perhaps `a little French

Slavery', he suggested, `may teach us not to Over (Under) Value our Liberties': '`' is [W]hat the Protestant Religion to us? Had we not much better be Papists than Traytors? Had we not much better deny our God, our Religion Baptism, our and our Lives, than deny our lawful Prince, our in next Male a Right Line? If Popery comes, Passive Obedience is still our Friend; we are Protestants; we can Die, we can Burn, we can do any Thing but Rebel... 67

Yet, while the restoration of a Catholic monarchy was sure to be accompanied by some undesirable side-effects, James' firm government would more than compensate for any disadvantages by generating the much longed-for domestic peace. Defoe's list of the "benefits" of a Stuart monarchy was again characterised by a highly revealing irony: as an enslaved Catholic nation, Britain would no longer have to fight expensive wars to protect its liberties; indeed, `the Slavery of Religion' would be taken off entirely; the Union with Scotland dissolved; MPs would save money as they had no longer to travel to Westminster; the national debt would be reduced as interest annuities and would no longer be paid, while the payment of taxes would be continued; a standing army would be established to prevent mobs; finally, the freedom of the press would be destroyed to preserve the domestic peace.68 Moreover,

65 Charles Leslie, A letter from Mr. Lesly to a Member ofl'arliament in London (1714) in A. Browning (ed), English Historical Documents Vol. Vll] (1953), 910-11 66 Daniel Defoe, And What Pretender if the Should Come? (1713), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 1,196-97. Novak has pointed out that the parentheses Defoe inserted he showed that was uncertain whether his audience would understand his irony' (423). 67 Defoe, Reasons Daniel against the Succession of the House of Hanover (1713), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 1,172 `'" Daniel Defoe, And What if the Pretender Should Come?, 193-205

168 since the protection of the people was close to the Pretender's heart, he will `suffer none to Insult or Plunder the City but himself.. 69

Defoe's irony was, of course, an intentionally poor disguise for his actual James message: was not going to be the fairy tale king of Jacobite folklore but a ruthless tyrant, who was certain to revoke the liberties which the Glorious Revolution had for Englishman. secured every Defoe's exasperation with Jacobite idealisations of

James eventually resulted in a complete breakdown of his ironical stance. The final Reasons Succession pages of against the represented a straightforward attack on

British Jacobitism: if the nation could not remedy itself of this `Disease of Stupidity', then perhaps James should be allowed to claim the British throne, so that Britain `may 7° see what Slavery means'.

Defoe's last of the three 1713 pamphlets on the topic of Jacobitism, An Answer to a Question that No Body thinks of, viz. But what if the Queen should die?, continued the more solemn tone of the final paragraphs of Reasons against the

Succession. Indeed, this time Defoe's irony did not extend beyond the pamphlet's his biographers title, which, as one of has highlighted, was `absolutely comic', since the issue of the succession was, in fact, on everyone's mind. " Defoe began the by pamphlet rejecting the recent rumour that the queen's government were prepared to disregard the Act of Settlement and had instead laid plans to offer the throne to death. James on Anne's No-one, Defoe asserted defiantly, should believe that

Harley's `Ministry are in any Kind, or with any Prospect near, or remote, Acting for, View bring 72 or with a Design or to in the Pretender'. Yet, in the face of resurgent

Jacobitism, more neededto be done to safeguardBritain's Protestant succession.The highlighted nation, he the purpose of his pamphlet, neededto be made aware of `all dreadful Calamities Sorts of they will fall into at Her Majesty's Death, if something be done Settle before 73 not to them Her Death'. To achieve this, Defoe worked his

69 Ibid, 204 70 Defoe, Reasons against the Succession, 175 71 Backscheider, 322 72 Daniel Defoe, An Answer Question to a that No Body thinks coJ...(1713), Political and Economic Writings, Vol. 1,211 73 Ibid, 227

169 list way through a of points which roughly correspond to those associated with the 74 Whigs' Revolution Principles. In particular Britain's limited monarchy and religion 75 were facing an `imminent Danger' from the Jacobite threat. Recent rumours regarding the succession as well as the Jacobite-inspired expressions of popular disaffection with the House of Hanover clearly represented a significant concern to Defoe.

Defoe's plan of highlighting the dangers of Jacobitism spectacularly backfired.

A small group of Whig writers filed a complaint against Defoe soon after the last 76 publication of the pamphlet. These Whig writers were themselves under prosecution for seditious libel and hoped to embarrass a government-protected writer and his patrons by putting Defoe into the same position. Amid much publicity, Defoe was arrested and committed to Newgate prison towards the end of April. `The indictment accused him of being a Jacobite intent upon casting doubt on Anne's title 77 and "subverting" the Protestant succession'. The prosecution had, of course, chosen to read various sections of the pamphlets literally and out of context, thus conjuring up the above allegations. The case was delayed several times and Defoe spent a number of months being harassed by the prosecution, but the pamphlets were eventually judged to be libellous. Defoe was once again committed to prison. in However, contrast to the punishment he had to suffer for The Shortest Way a decade earlier and once again after some intervention on Harley's part, he received a direct pardon from the queen in October 1713. Potentially, the case could have had fatal consequences. Had the prosecution been successful in proving their original accusation of treason, Defoe might well have `come to be hang'd, drawn, and quarter'd', as one of the judges informed him at the trial. 78

Astonishingly, within a year of his pardon Defoe was once again in trouble for Jacobitism-related issues. commenting on He had been working as a writer and editor

74 Ibid, 212-24 's Ibid, 227 76 I'lus is based Paula R. section on Backschcider's account of Defoe's prosecution for the succession pamphlets (323-28). 77 Ibid, 325 78 Novak, 429

170 on the Whig flying Post, and in August 1714 a statement appeared in the newspaper which more or less openly accused one of the Lords Regent, the Earl of Anglesey, of 79 being a Jacobite. Offended by the accusation, Anglesey demanded the persecution of the person responsible and Defoe was in custody by 28 August. He was released on bail after less than two weeks but had to wait almost an entire year for the trial, which, KO in the main, constituted a retrial for the earlier three succession pamphlets. From a legal point of view the case proved to be straightforward, since the manuscript had been in Defoe's hand. He was found guilty of publishing libellous materials and sentenced to receive a heavy fine, to be whipped from Newgate to Charing Cross, and to be imprisoned for two years. The sentence was postponed until the following term, enough time for Defoe to strike a new deal with the government and escape punishment. However, while he might have escaped death and imprisonment, the two cases involving accusations of Jacobitism made by and against Defoe did little to improve his already heavily damaged reputation.

Defoe's position as a much maligned, unemployed and unprotected polemicist at the end of Anne's reign was made even more precarious by the dramatic changes which were occurring in the political landscape following the accession of the Elector of Hanover, Georg Ludwig, on 1 August 1714. The Tories' failure to reject unanimously the claims to the British throne made by James II's son, James Frances

Edward Stuart, and the deep commitment to the Hanoverian succession shown by the

Whigs, had predetermined which party was to enjoy royal favour long before the new

king arrived in England. Between the queen's death and the dissolution of parliament

in January 1715, George ensured that `whole departments of State were purged of

Tories and staffed with loyal Whigs', while in `the provinces Tory lords lieutenants

and flagrantly Jacobite justices of the peace were removed and replaced with men whose loyalty to the Protestant Succession was above suspicion'. "' Mere dismissals,

however, did not appease the anger of the king's new ministers; the buoyant Whigs

wanted revenge. Encouraged by George, who, in his proclamation for a new parliament, `clearly, if obliquely, stigmatized' the leaders and the Tory majority in the

79 This account is based on Sutherland Defoe, 205-6,213-14, and Novak, 457-59,471 80 Backscheidcr, 378-82 81 Speck, `General Election', 507,518

171 old Parliament as Jacobite traitors, impeachment proceedings were brought against

Harley (now Earl of Oxford), the Duke of Ormonde and Henry St John (now Viscount 82 Bolingbroke). Oxford was prepared to sit out the storm and was confined to the

Tower for two years, while awaiting his trial for the charge of high treason. In contrast, Bolingbroke and Ormonde, anticipating arrest, fled into arms of the

Pretender, thus reinforcing the Whigs' contention that the late ministry, and indeed all

Tories, were covert Jacobites.

Defoe's association with Oxford was well known and any accusations of

Jacobitism against his patron necessarily also reflected on him. In 1713 Oxford had been able to save Defoe from imprisonment after the Whigs had brought a spurious case of pro-Stuart propaganda against him. During the early months of George's reign, however, Defoe no longer enjoyed the privilege of ministerial protection and, as a result, began to concentrate almost exclusively on clearing Oxford's and, by implication, his own name of the accusations the Whigs had made against him. His pamphlets, Advice to the People of Great Britain, the three parts of The Secret History of the White Staff and The Secret History of the Secret History, all published between

September 1714 and January 1715, were, in the main, designed to refute the accusations of Jacobitism levelled at Oxford. The former leader of the government,

Defoe repeatedly insisted, was no Jacobite himself; he had merely used the Jacobites to gain political advantages. Oxford had `views quite different' from those in favour of a Stuart restoration and from the start he had aimed to eventually overthrow them. ''

It was, in fact, the Whigs' refusal to collaborate with him which had forced him to seek the `Assistance of Jacobite Instruments, in the necessary Opposition which he 84 was oblig'd to make to the Party who set up against him'. Yet, while he had utilised their political strength to his own advantage, Oxford `dup'd and bubbled' the

Jacobites. His tactics had been a matter of keeping one's enemies close to control them more effectively. Significantly, he had `broke the Measures of the Pretender in

Scotland by ordering the Scottish nobles to attend Parliament, thus forcing them to declare their allegiance to Queen Anne. In addition, in the recent peace the Jacobites

R2 Archibald S. Foord, His Majesty's Opposition 1714-1830 (Oxford, 1964), 15 8; Daniel Defoe, Advice to the People of Great Britain (1714), 9 84 Daniel Defoe, The Secret History of the White Staff, Part 11(1714), 9

172 Cause `found their was wholly abandon'd', as it had virtually cut off French " There doubt support. was no that Oxford had always been `immoveably attach'd to Interest Protestant Succession, the of the and inseparably engaged to that of the illustrious House Hanover'. 86 of Daniel Defoe, the chorus of his pamphlets went, had certainly not been working for a Jacobite.

However, fully aware of the `gangland quality of high-political life' during these turbulent months and in anticipation of Whig vengeance, Defoe appears to have in had little faith his rhetoric concerning Oxford's innocence and consequently, he leniency. 87 repeatedly advocated The new era, he insisted, should see a general for amnesty the members of the former government. For the sake of the `publick he former peace', argued, offences against Hanoverian policy and loyalty, even if they had betrayed a sympathetic attitude towards the Pretender, should now be forgotten, as long as a sound allegiance to the new king was evident. King George, Defoe stated hopefully, will `treat us with all that Clemency, Lenity, Tenderness and Moderation that we can desire' and not `confine himself to the narrow Measures of a Party'. 88 As for the Whigs, they should remember how Oxford had treated his political enemies in the past: `it was apparent, that Victory obtained, he [Oxford] had no farther Schemes of Opposition to pursue; that it was not in his Design to crush and ruin the Persons he 89 struggled with'.

Secret History The series was followed by Defoe's apology for his own life, An Honour Justice, Appeal to and tho' it be of his Worst L'nemies, which appeared in

February 1715. This time Defoe directly washed his hands of the Jacobite connection late of which the government and he himself had been accused: `neither did 1 ever Sin against the Protestant Succession of Hanover in Thought, Word, or Deed; and if the Ministry did, I did it, 90 not see or so much as suspect them of it'. In contrast to public

85 Ibid, 9,23-33; Part III Secret of the History generally reiterated the points made in the two earlier parts. 86 Daniel Defoe, Secret History of the White Staff Part 1,2nd ed (1714) 36 87 Linda Colley, In Defiance Oligarchy of -- The Tory Party 1714-60 (Cambridge, 1982), 183 88 Defoe, Advice to the People of Great Britain, 22,26 99 Defoe, Secret History, Part 1,20 90 Defoe, Appeal to Honour and Justice, 172,175-77,186

173 perception, Defoe insisted that he had remained steadfast to Whiggish ideals: `I never once changed my Opinion, my Principles, or my Party; and let what will be said of changing Sides, this I maintain, That I never once deviated from the Revolution

Principles, nor from the Doctrine of Liberty and Property, on which it was founded. '`''

Defoe's effort to improve Oxford's and his own position under the new regime did, of course, prove to be wholly futile.

In the midst of these damage-limitation activities, Defoe produced and published anonymously a text which seems oddly out of place amongst the pamphlets discussed above, namely The Family Instructor. Defoe's first full-length didactic work was advertised in the press as early as late January 1715 and probably published 92 close to this time. The most widely endorsed explanation as to why Defoe published a conduct book at this time is Rothman's claim that The Family Instructor was

Defoe's reaction to the Schism Act of May 1714.93 The act had been Bolingbroke's final attempt to wrest ministerial control out of Oxford's hands and widely supported 94 by High Church Tories. It was designed to administer a mortal blow to the

Dissenters' educational facilities by preventing nonconformists educating their children outside their homes. According to the Bill, teachers, except in the universities and those who taught at home, had to apply for licenses, which would only be granted if they had taken the Anglican sacrament within the previous year. A licensed teacher who subsequently attended non-Anglican worship was to be disqualified indefinitely.

Further punishments included a substantial fine and imprisonment `without bail or 95 mainprize for the space of three months'. The Tamily Instructor, Rothman suggests, was Defoe's `purposeful effort to attract readers opposed to the Schism Act and to admit to private homes a family instructor that could not be denied' by the authorities.

Strong support for the idea that Defoe's book was a response to the Schism Act designed predominantly for Dissenters is, according to Rothman, provided by the

9' Ibid, 191 92 I. N. Rothman, `Defoe Census of The Family Instructor and The Political History of the Devil', Notes and Queries 221 (1976), 487; Critical Bibliography, 152 93 See above, 157 94 Sheila Biddle, Bolingbroke & Harley (London, 1975),277; Holmes, 423 `The Schism Act, 1714', 1'nglish Historical Documents, Vol. VII1,409-10; Hatton, 199

174 selection of Emanuel Matthews as publisher and the inclusion of a recommendatory letter by the Presbyterian minister, Reverend Mr. Samuel Wright. 96

However, there seem to be a number of weaknesses in Rothman's hypothesis that The Family Instructor was Defoe's response to the Schism Act written specifically for the Dissenters. Firstly, the choice of Emanuel Matthews does not appear to provide conclusive evidence for Defoe's target readership. Using Matthews as a publisher meant, as Rothman himself explains, collaborating with a man who was sympathetic towards religious nonconformity and regularly published tracts by

Dissenters. Moreover, Matthews' publications prior to The Family Instructor betray an interest in texts concerned with moral and religious instruction and, at a time when

Defoe urgently needed a source of income, it would not have been difficult for Defoe 97 to persuade Matthews to sell his book. Most importantly, however, Matthews had not published any of Defoe's works before and therefore represented an ideal choice for concealing his authorship of The Iämily Instructor, public knowledge of which could, in the context of his poor reputation and the pending Anglesey case, have seriously harmed the book's sales figures. Matthews therefore represented an ideal publisher for a much maligned writer who needed to generate an income fast. It seems highly likely, therefore, that Defoe's decision to approach him was influenced as much by commercial reasons as by religious or ideological ones.

In contrast, the inclusion of a recommendatory letter by Samuel Wright does indeed seem anything but an `innocent move' in the context of Defoe's opposition to 98 the Schism Act, at least at first sight. The endorsement of the book by a leading

Presbyterian divine did undoubtedly establish a connection with Puritan theology but perhaps the importance of this aspect of The Family Instructor has been overstated.

On close inspection, it becomes apparent that Wright's letter constituted little more than a series of casual remarks on Defoe's text. In the first two sentences of his letter

96 Rothman, `Response', 201,216 97 Examples of Matthews' publications include B[enjamin] Grosvenor The Preservative of Virtuous Youth (1714); Henry Matthew The Pleasentness ofa Religious Lift (1714) and Sober-mindedness Press 'd Upon Young People (1715); Robert Murray Christ Every Christian's Pattern (1715); S[amuel] Wright A Sermon Preach 'd Before the Societies for Reformation ofManners (1715). 98 Rothman, `Response', 214

175 the Reverend Wright commends the book's general topic, the re-establishment of family religion, before lamenting the poor quality of the printing. There was of course nothing unusual about a minister's highlighting the promotion of family religion as a worthy aim for any kind of book, and Wright's recommendation could easily have introduced other conduct books of a similar nature. Tellingly, it is only the `Substance of the Book' which Wright felt able to praise, that is immediately qualified by the statement that the printer's poor workmanship will severely harm the reading '`' experience and `render the Reader very uneasy'. We shall return to the issue of the alleged poor quality of the first edition later.

Theseintroductory thoughts are followed by brief summariesof the contents of the three parts of The Family Instructor. Wright's actual recommendation continued to be something of a double-edged sword. He praised Defoe's notes for achieving the clarity which he felt the dialogues sometimes lack. He emphasised that the `Substance of each Narrative is REAL' but regarded some of Defoe's expressions a `little out of

Character'. Wright's concluding comments on the book expressed his hope rather than certainty that it might lead to an improvement in the religious behaviour of the reader. The learned divine's recommendation was, in essence, highly non-committal and hardly depicted Defoe's book as a potential future bestseller or important religious text: `who knows but something may [my emphasis] occur to the Eyes of those that do but glance into it'. Wright's letter, then, was distinctly lukewarm in its praise and hardly the kind of marketing tool which would greatly improve the appeal of The Family Instructor to readers of any denomination.

It is perhaps also important to note that the letter did not in any way refer to the

Schism Act or its effect and that it did not engage with any doctrinal issues or the question of Dissent. In fact, Defoe himself rejected the idea that the book was predominantly aimed at Dissenters or concerned with the theological differences of

99 Daniel Defoe, The Family Instructor (1715), `A Letter to the Publisher'. The edition of The Family Instructor referred to throughout this study is the 1989 facsimile reproduction of the second edition by Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints with an introduction by P. R. Backschcider. This edition also includes reproductions of passagesfrom the first edition which were omitted in the second edition. Subsequent references to this edition of The Family Instructor are offered in parenthesis following the quotation. Unless otherwise noted, references are to the second edition.

176 those within and without the Church. The nature of The Family Instructor, Defoe

stated categorically in the introductions to both the first and second editions, was strictly ecumenical: There is no room to inquire here who this Tract is directed to, or who it is written by, whether by Church of England Man, or Dissenter; it is evident both need it, it may be useful to both, and it is written with Charity to, and for the Benefit both.. (First Edition, 3) of .

in the pursuit of this Book care is taken to Distinctions ... avoid of Opinion,... and the Advice is impartially directed to both [Anglicans and Nonconformists] without the least Distinction. (First Edition, 3; Second Edition, 3)

Rothman does, of course, acknowledge Defoe's efforts to `engage readers of all

convictions' but he feels that the symbolic value of Matthews and Wright outweighs 1°° and overrides the clear message contained in Defoe's own words. Yet, six or so

months after the appearance of his book, Defoe decided to undertake some revisions,

one of which resulted in the complete omission of Wright's letter. Interestingly, while

the preface to the second edition of The Family Instructor acknowledged the

recommendatory letter, it did not mention Wright's name: `it is hoped the Work has not dishonour 'd the Reverend Person, who did it the l, avour to give it the first

Recommendation' (Preface). Nor does this single reference to the letter represent an felt expression of strongly gratitude. Rather, Defoe apologised to the unnamed fact Reverend for the that the first edition was `so ill Printed', and that he had been

associated with a work of such poor workmanship. Importantly, he also stated that

beside the poor quality of print, the first edition was `so uncorrect, that it stood more

than ordinarily in Need of the Help of a good Introduction' (Preface). Wright's letter,

however, did not suffer from any imperfections, which suggests that Defoe considered

the recommendation as inappropriate and as conveying an `uncorrect' message. It is,

of course, perfectly possible that Defoe had no hand in obtaining the letter and that the

decision to include it was entirely Matthew's. At least, the omission of the letter from

the second edition and the inclusion of Defoe's own preface appear to hint at this

possibility. In any case, Wright's recommendation was clearly of no great importance

to Defoe's supposed continued opposition to the Schism Act.

100 Rothman, `Response', 216

177 While citing Matthews and Wright as evidence to confirm the status of %he

Family Instructor as a major document of opposition to the Schism Act is, as we have seen, problematic, the greatest problem which Rothman's account fails to explain is perhaps offered by the political context of the book's composition and publication. A brief look at the period in question will highlight that the Schism Act is unlikely to have been the sole or main impulse behind Defoe's conduct book. The bulk of The

Family Instructor is unlikely to have been composed before August 1714. "" Yet, by this time, there were clear signs that the act was not going to be enforced: the new king had made clear his preference for the Whigs, who, importantly, had vigorously opposed the Schism Act. Moreover, the fact that George himself had, as a Lutheran, not been instructed in the faith of the Anglican Church and as such was technically a Dissenter himself, ensured a certain degree of empathy with English 102 Nonconformists. Certainly, at the time when the first advertisements for The

Family Instructor appeared, it would have become obvious that the Schism Act was a law without teeth. Indeed, due to a lack of enforcement, the Act was eventually repealed in 1719.

Defoe, it should be noted, anticipated that the new law was not going to have its intended impact. In a letter he sent to Oxford on 21 May 1714, he expressed his discomfort about the proposed piece of legislation and predicted that some of the damage it might potentially be able to inflict on the Dissenting interest could be 103 'Irreparable'. This, however, is immediately qualified by Defoe's defiant statement that, in any case, the Dissenters would flout the law and `have schooles still'. Given that the government could have suppressed Dissenting academies under existing law,

101 In his article, Ivanyi proposes that due to its similarities to his other pamphlets of the period, the tract The Schism Act Explain 'd, published on 31 July 1714, was also Defoe's work (Furbank and Owens, incidentally, do not comment on this attribution). According to Ivanyi, the pamphlet provides `almost direct evidence' for Defoe's authorship in a passage which promises that the author will "`speak larger' on the subject of family instruction `on another occasion"'. This other occasion was to be The Family Instructor (`Defoe's Prelude', 312). If lvanyi's suggestion is correct, than Defoe is unlikely to have begun, or at least have made significant progress, on his book at the time of publication of The Schism Act Explain 'd. 102 Holmes, 307; Hatton, 173; Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 194-95 103 Healey, Letters, 440

178 the new piece of legislation was futile, since nonconformist schools will be `No More

Illegall Than before'. On the day of the Bill's passage into law, 23 June, Defoe once again wrote to Oxford to express his dismay at the fact that a `Certain Set of Men,

Appointed no doubt', were trying to spread a sense of panic among the Dissenters by depicting the Bill to be more dangerous than it actually was. No Dissenter, Defoe hoped, would be `Influenced by Such speeches to anything Undutifull and Unquiet'. 104

By the time he began to write The Family Instructor, then, Defoe's attitude towards the Act was hardly one of overwhelming pessimism. 105To be sure, Defoe did regard the act as an insult to the Dissenters. In A Brief Survey of the Legal Liberties of the Dissenters, he attacked the High Church measure and reminded his readers that the Dissenters had earned a right to toleration for their part in the Revolution, stating that it was `not a Courtsey, but a Capitulation, the Performance of an Agreement, not an Act of meer Tenderness and Charity' on the part of the Church of England. ' 06

Since the Church was `oblig'd to grant' the Toleration, it was `equally oblig'd to continue it' and the Dissenters had a `Right to demand the Preserving it'. ' 07 Schools and academies for Dissenters' children were admittedly `not expressly Part of the Toleration Bill' but this was hardly the point: the Liberty of Teaching Instructing Children, is ... and our such an Essential, in the Meaning of a Tolleration, that it need no more to be Express'd therein, than a Liberty of going out of our own Houses, or Riseing out of our Beds... 108

Since educating one's children was an integral part of every Christian's duty, the

Schism Bill would consequently force the Dissenters to act illegally: If the Dissenters are Abridg'd of what is their Indispensible Duty, they are Persecuted in the most Extreme Sence [sic] of Persecution; for the Consequence is, they must offend against this Law, because they are Bound to obey God rather than Man. 109

104 Ibid, 442; also see Ivanyi for a discussion of these letters ('Defoe's Prelude', 312). 105 Novak makes a similar point (484). 106 Daniel Defoe, A Brief Survey of the Legal Liberties of the Dissenters (1714), 3-4. Sec chapter II for Defoe's justification of the Dissenters' right to toleration. 107 Ibid, 4 Ios Ibid, 6-7 109 Ibid, 7

179 Thus, the act was in fact a reflection on the Church's hypocrisy rather than a justified, or indeed lawful, limitation placed on the Dissenters. Yet, regardless of what the High

Anglicans would throw at the Dissenters, they would not, Defoe was certain, give up their schools. This, however, raises the question of why Defoe would spend a considerable amount of time on producing a book that was apparently designed to counter the impact of an act which he clearly believed was going to remain largely ineffective. If Dissenting schools were going to remain open, why would the

Dissenters suddenly need a book which enabled them to conduct religious education in their own homes?

The most readily available answer to these questions is that Defoe, unemployed since August 1714, was simply looking for a reliable source of income. In this context, publishing a conduct book came as close to guaranteed earnings as Defoe could have come in the literary market. Many seventeenth- and early eighteenth- ' 10 century readers indulged mostly in devotional reading. Indeed, the majority of the literate population traditionally began their life of literacy with religious reading before moving on to wider literary interests. Moreover, changes in life-style, in particular an increased urbanisation, represented a threat to familiar habits and ways of life. The tradition of story-telling by elders, an important vehicle for the transmission of ideas and values, had been negatively affected by the social changes and without the accumulated knowledge of previous generations `the world seemed ' 1' fuller every day of shades of gray'. Didactic literature, especially the guide book, restored some of this lost orality in print and offered the reader reassuringly simple binary choices, usually based on a clearly defined, conservative sense of good and evil. It is not surprising, then, to find that didactic literature, such as moral treatises and theological discourses, continued to be by far the most frequently printed ' 12 materials during the eighteenth century. The most popular didactic tract, The Whole

Duty of Man, for example, was first published in 1659 and reached a fifty-ninth

"° Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (London, 1987), 50; also sec P.R. Baekscheider, 'Defoe's Prodigal Sons and The Family Instructor, ' Studies in the Literary Imagination 15:2 (1982), 3-4, for information on the popularity of the conduct book. H' J. Paul Hunter, Before Novels. The Cultural Contexts of Aighteenth Century English Fiction (New York & London, 1990), 229,233,237 112 Ibid, 234

180 edition by 1734. The demand for guide or conduct books by and for Dissenters might even have increased further during the readings of the Schism Bill in parliament, but it is unlikely that this significantly affected the sales of Defoe's text: by the time The

Family Instructor was published, Dissenters no longer had to fear the closure of their schools. While Defoe's book did not reach the same sales figures as The Whole Duty of Man, he had not misjudged the potential earning-power of The Family Instructor, "3 as it reached a healthy eight editions within five years of its first publication.

There is, of course, no reason why Defoe should not have wanted to combine his need for an income with an issue that had caught his attention and which he felt needed to be addressed in print. That issue, as should by now be clear, was not the

Schism Act. Indeed, the last pamphlet which Defoe published on the subject appeared in July 1714.114Thus, it appears highly unlikely that he intended to publish a `major document in continued opposition to the Schism Act' more than six months after his 115 most recent discussion of this law. However, what did, in fact, preoccupy Defoe at "6 this time was, as we have seen, the issue of Jacobitism. As a result of a revival of the Jacobite interest, the nation had experienced a succession crisis in 1713 and

Jacobite-inspired riots that regularly shook England from August 1714 until the early months of 1716. Significantly, these important events respectively immediately preceded and coincided with the composition of The Family Instructor. It therefore seems more plausible to suggest that the highly vocal calls for a Stuart restoration and the repeated incidents of social unrest inspired and shaped the contents of Defoe's conduct book. In order to demonstrate more effectively the way in which Defoe's

113 Rothman, `Defoe Census', 487-88 "^ See note 29 above. The last pamphlet which Furbank and Owens list on this topic is The Weakest Go to the Wall, or the Dissenters Sacrijic d by all Parties, which appeared in June 1714. See Critical Bibliography, 145-52, for a list of Defoe's publications during this period. 115 Rothman, 'Defoe's The Family Instructor', 212 116 In addition to the pamphlets considered in this chapter, Defoe discussed the issue of in following Jacobitism the publications: A Sharp Rebuke from one of the People Seasonable called Quakers (1715), A Expostulation with, and Friendly Reproof unto A James Butler (1715), Hymn to the Mob (1715), An Account of'the Great and Generous Actions of James Butler (1715), A View of the Scots Rebellion (1715), A Trumpet Blown in the North (1715), Some Thoughts ofan Honest Tory in the Country (1716), An Essay upon Buying and Selling of Speeches (1716).

181 book on family religion engaged with and responded to the Jacobite unrests, it will be useful to briefly explore how other religious texts dealt with the matter. The sermon

assumes particular relevance here, since The Family Instructor had, if we can believe

Defoe, become a point of reference in some church services: his book, he stated proudly in the preface to the second edition, had been variously recommended `as 117 well from the Pulpit as from the Press'.

The sermon was, in fact, highly reflective of a significant development in party ideology. Firmly established in power under George, the court Whigs no longer required a political ideology which could be used to oppose those in authority.

Instead, the governmental Whigs and their supporters developed a `conservative political ideology which laid as much or even more emphasis on authority and "s obedience as it did on liberty and the rights of the subject'. The notion of government as a trust and the idea that government existed for the protection of the rights and the property of the subject were still prevalent in Whig ideology. The previously much coveted right of resistance, in contrast, could now be used by the

Jacobites to justify any acts of rebellion and was therefore replaced by the rhetoric of 19 obedience. The right of resistance was not entirely discarded but reserved for an absolute emergency in order to preserve the constitution from an arbitrary tyrant. The clear focus of the new Whig establishment was on a system of order and on the subject's duty of obedience to the magistrates. The Riot Act of 1715 was perhaps the most visible evidence for this change in Whig ideology.

One area in which this shift in ideology became particularly obvious was that of the political sermon. Gerd Mischler has shown that after 1714 `Whig clerics propagated the idea of passive obedience and denied the right of resistance in political sermons that were held before audiences that can be described as thoroughly Whig in 120 their composition'. Importantly, this practice, as Susannah Abbott has

117 Defoe, Family Instructor, preface 118 Dickinson, 125-26 119 Ibid, 130 120 `English Political Sermons 1714-1742: Case Gerd Mischler, A Study in the Theory of the "Divine Right of Governours" and the Ideology of Order, ' British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (2001), 35

182 demonstrated, was even employed by those Anglican clerics who were not closely associated with the ministry. By 1715, there was a determined effort by the majority of clergymen to create a broad-based opposition to the rebellion which extended beyond the whigs. In their sermons the clergy carefully selected themes and constructed arguments to ensure that all English Protestants, from radical whigs to committed tories, could join the campaign against the Pretender. 121

Predictably, one of the main rhetorical strategies to achieve this involved preaching the duty of Christian obedience to the king. However, because of George's general focused unpopularity, sermons rarely on the king himself but took a wider view in their discussions of obedience and efforts to generate pro-Hanoverian support. The events of 1688 offered the logical point of reference for any refutation of Stuart but, if claims to the British throne a general unity was to be achieved amongst Whigs and Tories, the Revolution represented too divisive a topic to be explored openly. As limited a result, the clergy mostly their sermons to general explorations of the distinction between lawful and unlawful resistance. Here, the focus was on the two `a determined notions that nation's system of government the degree of obedience owed by subjects to their rulers' and that subjects had no right to resist a king who 122 had ruled according to the law. In the case of Britain, the system of government for in was a limited monarchy, which allowed resistance extreme cases of arbitrary, Importantly, however, George had unlawful actions of the monarch. adhered to this faithfully he had `in system and, consequently, not any way warranted the disobedience people had shown him by supporting the Pretender'. 123

The popularity of The Family Instructor with the clergy at this time was no Defoe, become coincidence, since as will apparent, employed a rhetorical strategy to the in which was very similar one generally used contemporary sermons. The it be flexibility sermon, should remembered, offered considerable to the preacher: by displacing issues of political theory into the realm of religion, the cleric was able to

`be more subversive, and at the same time more unchallengeable' than the author of a

121 Susannah Abbott, `Clerical responses to the Jacobite rebellion, ' Historical Research 76: 193 (2003), 336 122 Ibid, 343 123 Ibid, 344

183 124 political treatise ever could be. The outcome of the Sacheverell trial had clearly

demonstrated this. Dressing political ideas in religious rhetoric made it possible for

Whig preachers to reject outright a doctrine which had formerly played a major role in their political philosophy without causing feelings of discomfort or offence.

The strategy of metaphorical disguise employed in the sermon was perhaps even

more applicable to the guide book, as the playing-out of a certain political ideology in

the context of personal conduct and individual spirituality and morality was yet harder

to challenge than it was in a politico-religious sermon. This was, of course, an

important aspect for Defoe, who was still awaiting his trial for the Anglesey case and,

if he wanted to secure a favourable outcome, could not afford to risk any further

accusations of Jacobite-related offences. Tellingly, the format of the text, as his

explanation in the preface shows, warranted Defoe's special consideration: The whole Work being design 'd both to divert and instruct, the Author has endeavoured to adapt it as much as possible to both those Uses, from whence some have call 'd it a Religious Play. It would more have answer 'd that Title, had the Author's first Design been pursued, which was to have made it a Drammatick Poem: But the Subject was too solemn, and the Text too copious, to suffer the Restraint on one Hand, or the Excursions on the other, which the Decoration of a Poem would have made necessary.

It is interesting that Defoe decided against presenting his ideas in the form of verse.

Satirical poems such as The True-Born Englishman could potentially have an impact debate by enormous polemical and, given that they rarely offered a political Defoe have his in presenting both sides of the argument, could presented thoughts a if he had The clear and unambiguous manner chosen this genre. partisan nature of the however, have Defoe's verse satire, would also severely undermined stated goal to `divert and instruct', as its aggressive and partisan stance was likely to cause offence It for in some of his readers. was, of course, this very reason that clerical responses to Jacobite activities largely avoided references to the Glorious Revolution.

Defoe admitted that the label `play' came close to describing the nature of his book. The reason for this was that he felt that his book actually illustrated rather than the the The merely explained to reader consequences of certain actions: Family

124 Mischler, `English Political Sermons', 38

184 Instructor be Defoe might called a play, mused, because `some Parts of it are too in Families (Preface). much acted many among us' This is, of course, where Me Family Instructor anticipated many of the elements which have been identified as for the typical novel, such as the move towards greater `realism' by focusing on in in `particular people particular circumstances' the context of `ordinary life' or the adaptation of a prose style which mimics actual spoken language. 125Replacing the formality eclectic approach and of a political treatise or verse satire with the features `case of what was essentially a study' allowed Defoe to present to the reader a recognisable set of political values which were protected from direct attacks by the informality. Significantly, text's very the political values evident in Defoe's conduct book closely reflected those propounded by those clerics who hoped to unite the nation in a campaign against Jacobitism.

While clerical responses to the Jacobite threat limited their discussions to different general explorations of governmental forms, Defoe, as the title of his book indicated, transposed his political rhetoric into the realm of domesticity in The Family He his in form Instructor. presented narrative the of eighteen dialogues which were larger divided into three parts, each of which dealt with a different set of familial Part I itself relations. Thus, concerned with the relationship between fathers and children, the second part with masters and servants, and Part III with husbands and wives; the third section continued the story of the family depicted in the first, while Part II offered a separate narrative. Defoe's strategy of discussing political issues in the context of a family setting was, of course, not a new one. The notion that the family `matched an atomized view... of the universe, in which unitary elements were had juxtaposed within a component whole' been widely utilised in political 126 discourses. Throughout the seventeenth century the idea of a correlation between the domestic and the public spheres, especially the `the conceptualisation of the had `an marriage contract', provided excellent example of the role of analogy in

125 Hunter, Before Novels, Chapters 9& 10; Watt, Rise of the Novel, 9-18,27 126 P.J. Corfield, `Class by name and number in eighteenth-century Britain, ' Language, History and Class, P.J. Corfield ed. (Oxford, 1991), 109-10

185 discourse'. 127 In political the propaganda campaigns of the Civil War years, for

instance, both royalists and parliamentarians drew on the example of the relationship between husband and wife to support their respective arguments for the irrevocable limited, authority of the monarch or the contractual nature of the king's power. 12K in fact, Defoe had, acknowledged the analogy between family and state in his most

extensive political statement, Jure Divino. An important part of his attack on the divine doctrines of right and passive obedience included, as Chapter III has shown, an 129 exploration of the history of governments. In the course of this exploration, Defoe admitted that the earliest and most basic form of government was the one evident within families. Here, fathers represented the equivalent of the monarch, while the his other family members constituted subjects. This analogy, Defoe pointed out in a footnote, was still applicable to a discussion of the social and political structures of early eighteenth-century England: `Subjects are called Children, from Monarchy being Patriarchal in its Original. ' 130

Establishing a close association of the domestic with the political sphere did not illustrative for merely serve an purpose political arguments, however. It was important considered to have an didactic function at the immediate, practical level, since individual reason and action was regarded as having the potential to `change the 131In course of sequential events'. other words, the seemingly insignificant behaviour in domestic of an individual the sphere could influence events on the much bigger stage of national politics. This also meant that, by extension, the configuration of familial relations actually constituted an important political act which had for larger repercussions the shape and nature of social and political structures. The Puritan Divine Richard Baxter remark of the that `most of the mischiefs that now infest or seize upon mankind throughout the earth, consist in, or are caused by the disorders and ill-governedness of families' illustrated perfectly the contemporary

127 Mary Lyndon Shanley, `Marriage Contract and Social Contract in Seventeenth Century English Political Thought', Western Political Quarterly 32 (1979), 80 128 Ibid, 79-85 129 See above, 133-34,144 130 Defoe, Jure Divino, 82n Order, Popular 131 C. Fisher, `Public Disorder. Defoe and "The Clamours of the People"', Halcyon 17 (1995), 206

186 perception of the correlation between the private and the public spheres. '-32 The

widespread conviction that the `health of human society' depended on `individual

determination to choose aright' thus firmly attached a political dimension to the 133 private conduct of every subject.

Defoe, Backscheider rightly asserts, shared the opinion that `private morality foundation provided the of public strength and that the family was an emblem of the 134 however, nation'. Britain was, witnessing a worrying number of acts of individual

transgression in the Jacobite-inspired riots, which was a clear sign that the moral fibre disintegrating. of the nation was Defoe, as we have seen, had already shown

considerable concern with regard to the recent rise of Jacobitism and in July 1715, he

once again felt compelled to comment on this domestic threat in the pamphlet, A

Hymn to the Mob. Predictably, his condemnation of the incidents of public unrest following George's accession was categorical: It is impossible for any Man, who professes a Concern for his Country, to look upon the Conduct of the People at this Time without great Affliction; to see the Laws trampl'd under Foot, Justice despis'd, Authority insulted, 135 and Tumult prevail in Every Street...

interest here is What is of particular Defoe's emphasis on the transgressive conduct of in the people who took part the riots and the negative effect this had on the country as individuals had a whole. Too many made the wrong moral and political choices, Purposes which was `ruinous to all the of Civil Society, Enemies to Safety, Order,

Justice, and Policy among Men'. The morals of the `Oldest Family on Earth', as

Defoe tellingly labelled the mob, had become corrupted and its resistance to a Liberty Scepter government `where the sways' had turned the mob into an unnatural `Monster', which, in turn, threatened the stability of the entire nation. 136Significantly, however, a key feature of the relationship between the public and the private spheres it was its dialectic nature; was expected that `obedience which began in little things'

132 Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (1673), cited in Shanley `Marriage Contract and Social Contract', 79 133 Hunter, Before Novels, 231 134 Backscheider, 361 135 Daniel Defoe, A Hymn to the Mob (1715), Satire, Vol. 1,416 136 Ibid, 415,418,427-28

187 in big 137 led `to obedience ones'. Therefore, if the conduct of the individual could be in desirable fashion, influenced and controlled a then this would eventually put an end

to the moral and political misconduct of the rioters. That this was the actual concern which underscored The Family Instructor becomes evident in Defoe's introduction,

where he lamented that `we live in an Age that does not want so much to know their

Duty, as to practise it, not so much to be taught to know, as to be obedient to what (2). they already know' The nation had lost sight of its duty to obey a lawful

government, and therefore had to be reminded of it. It is the desire to reform the `Oldest Family', morals of Britain's then, which appears to have been the main impulse behind The Family Instructor.

The general concerns of Defoe's guide book of familial and social conduct, as

well as the duty of obedience, become apparent as early as the first dialogue. It should

be noted that Defoe's ostensible general aim of taking to task `those Parents who

neglect the Instruction of their Children' (5) is actually fully achieved in the opening father conversation between the and the youngest of his five children. By the end of

this dialogue, the father realises that he has wholly and wrongly neglected his paternal

duty of `directing, teaching, and governing his Family' (36) and, as a result of the his repeated reproofs of youngest son, is quickly converted from a `Negative Christian' (3) to a dutiful master of the family. Bearing in mind that The Iämily

Instructor in its entirety was `calculated to reprove and admonish' the father and lead him to `effectually reform the dreadful Practise' (4) of omitting family prayers, this far goal is realised too prematurely to represent an effective central topic for Defoe's book.

However, what the reader also encounters in the first dialogue is a theme which is developed throughout the rest of the book. The seemingly innocent enquiries of the lead young child which eventually to the establishment of regular family worship importantly, generate responses which are, not merely concerned with religious forms instruction and appropriate of prayer. Thus, when the boy wonders `who made he from his father me?', the answer receives extends well beyond the origins of his

137 Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (Abridged 1990), 127 edition: London,

188 physical existence. The child is not only taught, in the briefest of fashions, that his for his parents are responsible physical being and that God equipped him with a soul he learns his (7), but also to understand place and function within the familial, social him. and political structures which surround Initially, the young child is exposed, apparently for the first time, to the notion of the natural hierarchy of `animal-human- father God' (7-8). The then turns his son's attention toward to the structure of their domestic microcosm: as the male parent, the boy is told, the father enjoys a position of absolute power within the family hierarchy. Indeed, there is a sense that the father, within the domestic setting, enjoys a God-like status: `... to obey God, and to fear

God, is to love God; for to fear him as your Father, and to serve him as your Father, is to fear and serve him as a Child, and that is to love him' (10). The parallel between biological and spiritual fatherhood in this equation seems clear enough. Defoe's lesson in patriarchy does not, however, end here. Significantly, the father, in his efforts to instruct the child with regard to his duties to God and his parents, emphasises to his son the Ten Commandments as the central point of reference (10- 11).

The importance of Defoe's reference to the Commandments cannot be had been overstated. The Bible a widely used source in political and religious discourses of order and especially the Fifth Commandment to `Honour thy Father and Mother' had been an effective injunction to exhort obedience to one's superiors. »S book The most popular conduct of the period, The Whole Duty of Man, offered a in powerful exposition of this commandment a section entitled `Of Children's Duty duties love, unto Parents'. Beside the of reverence and children owed their parents the duty of obedience: This is not only contained in the fifth Commandment, but expressly enjoyned in other places of Scripture... We owe them an obedience in all things, unless where their Commands are contrary to the Commands of God, for in that case our Duty to God must be preferred;... Yet when it is he necessary to refuse obedience, should take care to do it in such a modest and respectful manner, that it may appear 'tis Conscience only, and not Stubbornness... in case of all lawful commands, that is, when the thing commanded is either good, or not evil, when it hath nothing in it

138 Dickinson, 20-22

189 contrary to our Duty to God, there the Child is bound to obey, be the Command in a weightier or lighter matter. 139

Thus, as long as the request was lawful, it was the child's duty to fully subject itself' to its Even in the orders of parents. the event of justified resistance, the child's actions had to demonstrate a visible general submissiveness, which served to maintain the natural hierarchy within the family.

An important qualification of the Fifth Commandment, and one of which have been Defoe's reader would aware, was its applicability to society as a whole.

The duty of obedience to patriarchal authority meant that, within the general social

order, fathers were exchangeable with employers, parsons and magistrates. The

reference to `father and mother' in the Fifth Commandment was to be extended to Civil `include all superiors, as well as a Parent (the King and His magistrates, a

Master, a Mistress, or an Husband) and an Ecclesiastical Parent (the Bishop and

Ministers) as the natural Parent that begat and bore thee: to all these I owe Revereance ' 40 and Obediance [sic], Service and Maintenance, Love and Honour'. The Whole Duty of Man stressed this notion through a constant association of the duties of children to parents with those of subjects to magistrates. The duty of obedience owed by a subject to his `Civil Parent' was phrased in almost identical terms to those used to describe filial obedience: An Obedience we must pay, either Active or Passive; the Active in the case of all lawful Commands;... when he [the magistrate] enjoyns any thing contrary to what God hath commanded, we are not to pay him this Active Obedience... we are in that case to obey God rather than Man. But even this is a season for the passive obedience; we must patiently suffer what he inflicts on us for such refusal, and not, to secure our selves, rise 141 up against him. Commandments Any reference to the Ten therefore carried with it an obvious Defoe's have political dimension which readers were unlikely to missed. The early Commandments in The Family Instructor, reference to the as well as Defoe's later The Whole Duty Man (78), immediately endorsement of of and clearly signalled to book's focus the reader that the main was perhaps not so much on the virtues of

139 [Richard Allestrec ?], The Whole Duty ofMan (1714), 278-80 140 Humphrey Brailsford, The Poor Man's Help (1689), cited in Dickinson, 21-22 141 [Allestree? ], Whole Duty ofMan, 269-70

190 but regular family worship, rather on the importance of a well-functioning patriarchal first order. From the very dialogue, then, Defoe's book engaged with what he later for calls the `proper Methods reducing... Children to an Obedience to, and a Sence [sic] of their Duty' (74).

Once the father has become a dutiful head of the family, the focus of Defoe's narrative shifted from the importance of family prayer and religious instruction to the responses of the various family members to the father's implementation of regular worship. Adhering to the guide book tradition of offering simple binary choices,

Defoe divided the children of his fictional family into examples of commendable obedience and deplorable rebellion. In the three youngest children Defoe provided the dutiful reader with models of and submissive behaviour. For example, in response to his oldest sister's refusal to submit to her father's new regime, the second son, a seventeen year old university student, states: if it were no more than that my Father desires it, and says, he resolves to have it so, you will hardly perswade your self not to submit to him; you know besides, that he is our Father, and we ought in Duty to obey him; for he has been the kindest, tenderest, obliging'st Father in the World TO US, and it would be very ungrateful to show your self rude to such a Father, as it would be wicked to disobey him. (85)

The younger children of Defoe's fictional family constantly propound the need to dutiful in obey and submit to government the above manner. The chorus of `I was him, had been willing to do anything to oblige who so good a Father to me' (82) rings through all of the younger siblings' exclamations. The behaviour of these children bears out precisely what many Whig clerics were preaching to their congregations, `neither hard 142 namely that obedience was nor unbearable'. The dutiful children take father's pleasure in their submission to their government, asserting that they are `glad to do any thing to answer his End' (84). In the concluding dialogue between the father the and one of the younger children, extent of the child's obedience eventually becomes total. The submissiveness of the second son is so extreme that there is not in his `I even a hint of any thoughts of resistance words: am entirely resolv'd to be Instructions, follow Rules, guided by your to your obey your Dictates, and submit

142 Mischler, `English Political Sermons', 40

191 wholly to your Direction, let the Difficulty be what it will to me' (120-21). Similarly, has fully internalised biblical the second sister the command `Children obey your (94), declaring Parents in all things' that she would be `Any thing rather than a Rebel to God and my Parents' (95).

binary The negative opposite to the commendable behaviour of the younger by children is provided the conduct of the oldest son and daughter. Both children

categorically refuse to obey any of their parents' instructions, insisting that they will `never submit' and that it is `in vain to threaten' them with punishment (81,86). They

ridicule their obedient second sister for being a `pretty complying, easie Fool' (91).

They repeatedly reject their father's `positive Testimonies of his Patriarchal declare Authority' (147) and themselves unable to accept the new regime which their

father has established (147,151-2). Eventually, the oldest son's disobedience

represents a complete inversion of his younger sibling's submissiveness: `You may be he defies his as resolute as you will', father, `you will never bring me to your Beck' highlight here (144). It is worthwhile to that Defoe, by depicting the two oldest `Family-Government children's refusal to submit to a entirely new', was being highly topical: the incidents of social unrest at the time of publication of The J ämily in Instructor had their roots a widespread popular disaffection with the king and his new government.

The political rhetoric of The Family Instructor was not predominantly contained in the dichotomy of obedient and rebellious behaviour, however. The element of

Defoe's book which reflected directly on the contemporary political situation, and which was therefore of an arguably greater significance, was the justifications which the reader was offered as the motivations for the two different modes of conduct. The their father for firstly, younger, obedient children obey two reasons: they experience feelings of natural obligation to a parent whom they consider to be loving and benevolent. In other words, they simply perceive any acts which `abuse the both Tenderness' (95) of of their parents as ungrateful. Consequently, as one of the declares, they to lives `not younger children are willing change their only out of Inclination Obedience' but `out of meer and Choice' (105). Secondly, and more their father's importantly, they recognise newly reformed government of the family as

192 just lawful. During debate her and a with obstinate older sister, the second sister explains why she is prepared to submit to her parents' orders: I I am not asham'd to own that obey my Mother, and am willing to do so in every thing; especially every thing that is right, more especially in is for every thing that my own Good, and most of all, where my Duty to God joins it... Scripture with the says expressly, Children obey your Parents in all things, much more where the Command of God, and the Command of our Parents concur together, as it does in this Case. (94)

be It should perhaps emphasised that by this point in the narrative, the mother has father's deputy become the and any submission to her automatically meant submitting to paternal authority. The sentiments of the second sister are later echoed by the

middle son in a conversation with his father. His pledge of submission to the is, in fact, patriarchal regime representative of the attitude of the entire cohort of younger children: `I am not only inclin'd to obey it [the father's command], for its being your Command, Sir; but my own Inclination concurs to set about any thing that will rectifie my Life, and teach me to govern my self according to my Duty' (119).

It is perhaps also worthwhile to note that all of the younger children demonstrated passive obedience prior to their father's introduction of a new family regime. Both the second daughter and the second son repeatedly assert that they `often in Way do thought we were not the to our selves good, and that the Life we led, was (105). not as it should be' Yet, despite this realisation, they quietly submitted to their irreligious parents' former, government. Bearing in mind that even a conservative book like seventeenth-century guide The Whole Duty of Man openly acknowledged that there were instances when filial disobedience might be justified, the absence in

The Family Instructor of an unambiguous endorsement of the right of resistance may be indicative book's be taken to of the polemical purpose. Any discussion of disobedience permissible acts of would simply have proved a needless obstacle for Defoe's efforts to exhort obedience to George I's lawful government.

Predictably, the older children's justification for their disobedient behaviour is Blinded by wholly unconvincing. their own pride, they merely assert that they are `too big' for father's (86,144). old' and `too their correction The explanation which for Defoe's commentary offered the rebellious behaviour of the two oldest siblings is

193 insightful, however. The rather more conduct of the pair, Defoe pointed out, was the product of the family's former government. In the past, they had been indulg'd in all possible Folly and Levity, such as Plays, Gaming, Life, Irreligious Looseness of and Behaviour;... [they had] grown up in a long allow'd Course of Loosness in Behaviour, all manner of Liberties having been given them, without any Family-Restraint, without Government, and rather encourag'd by their Parents, than limited either by Example or Command (74,99)

find It is difficult not to an allusion to the reigns of the Stuart brothers, Charles II and

James II, in Defoe's account of the family's former irreligious life. The period after had the Restoration seen the emergence of a distinctly libertine spirit in England and a 143 `willingness to tolerate a good deal of licentiousness'. Moreover, both monarchs had been patrons to the theatre; the notorious social gatherings at court, as well as the two men's sexual liaisons, had firmly associated Charles and James with moral 144 depravity in the public mind. In James' case, this was reinforced by his attempts to in once again legalise Popery England. John Toland had typically described the years between 1660 and 1688 as characterised by a `general depravation of manners, and las almost utter extirpation of Virtue and moral Honesty'. At a time when Jacobitism experienced an increasing popularity, it appears plausible to suggest, Defoe's description of the nature of the family's former government was unlikely to have been politically innocent.

One of the dominant featuresof the rebellious older pair of siblings in Defoe's imagined family is that, unlike the younger children, they are unable to distinguish between lawful and unlawful government. In a wholesale rejection of Christian values daughter her and morality, the oldest allows vanity to get the better of herself, be `no Christian, asserting that she would rather thought of as as you should think me herself disengaged a Fool' (86). She regards as entirely from the familial structures believes her father's around her and that rules are not applicable to her. When her for her second brother expresses a concern reputation, which he incidentally equates

143 Novak, Master of Fiction, 128 144 N. Zwicker (ed), The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1650-1740 (Cambridge, 1998), 82-3 145 [John Toland], The Danger ofMercenary Parliaments (1698), 3

194 her identity Christian (87), with as a she rejects this by a further assertion of her independence: individualism and `I shall take care of my own Reputation' (87). Most importantly, however, fails she to understand that the limitations her parents intend to impose her for the on are necessary universal good of the family, including her own. The young woman's plays and novels assume an important symbolic function in this her Defoe context: while parents,and also as a commentator, condemn the books as a immorality (75,108-9), source of she regards them as an emblem of her individuality herself in and right to express a manner of her choice (91). Consequently, she the burning `all the Books I had considers of that any Pleasure in' (80) as an unjustified encroachment on her personal liberty. Unable to comprehend that immoral habits, if limited individual actions and even to the in a domestic setting, need to be for curbed the greater good, she asks rhetorically `Can't I be sober as well with alI my has Books my Mother taken away, as without them? ' (89). While her obstinate attitude strongly suggests a positive response, her dutiful brother thinks otherwise: in be order for them to a `sober Family', he intimates to her, every family member had to be reformed and abide by the father's new rules (89).

The oldest son expresses similar sentiments to his sister, albeit in less When his father ambiguous terms. prevents him from leaving the house to socialise his friends, Defoe had him state a maxim which had formed key idea in hire with a , is Divino: `Liberty a Native Right, the Brutes seek it; not a Bird will be in a Cage, if it 146 can be free (135). For an attack on the doctrine of passive obedience this notion was of course a powerful argument, but almost a decade later, it had become entirely unsuitable for Defoe's polemical purposes. In fact, the oldest son's behaviour how demonstrated precisely the maxim could be used to justify resistance and licentiousness, encourage a general which stood in complete opposition to The Family

Instructor's rhetorical aim of exhorting obedience to the established powers. The freedom is son's claim to an unchecked therefore dismissed immediately by the father: do Evil is Liberty to an abandon'd Slavery, the worst Bondage, and Confinement from doing Evil, is the only true Liberty: I ... can give

VIII Jure Divino Defoe 146 In Book of stated that liberty was the `Birthright of the Life bestow'd, l Which Men World, with most will defend, and all Men should'.

195 Liberty no longer to any under my Roof to break God's Commands... if Government, you will not submit to my you must quit my Dominions... (135)

Family Instructor be The thus seemed to making a case for strong, restrictive laws of Whig Riot Act, the nature of the government's in order to curb licentiousness and regulate popular behaviour. The father's insistence on his son's submission is interestingly, in facing absolutely rigid and, this act of extended disobedience, he no justify his longer feels obliged to regime. In reaction to the son's challenge to paternal

authority, the family government becomes stricter and, indeed, unaccountable: `my

undoubted Right to govern my own Family, without giving an Account to my Children

of what I do.... it is my unquestioned Duty, to make all that are under my Command,

do their Duty' (134). `Unaccountable', however, did not necessarily mean `arbitrary' father's to Defoe. The government might be strict but, importantly, it was not

unlawful. As a result, any resistance to the new regime was unjustified, as the father

explains to his son: Obedience Had I extorted to any unreasonable, unjust Thing; had I put Hardships; had I you to any exposed you to any Dangers, or depriv'd you Pleasures, of your Lawful these Things might ha' been the Effect, and you might have had some Pretence so talking thus to your Fächer; but all this for laying before you your unquestionable Duty... This is a deplorable [sic] Instance of the woful Depravity of your Judgment, and Corruption of your Nature... (143 ) does The prodigal son not, of course, submit to his father's just rule but instead, in a further act of disobedience, he leaves the family home to travel without his father's joining consent, before eventually the army to fight in Flanders (172). Given that

Defoe was advocating the benefits of an authoritative regime, such extended transgressive behaviour could naturally not go unpunished: the son eventually returns impoverished but home crippled and still `unrepentant' (294). The young man is `reduced therefore further punished and to the last Extremity of Misery' (392). In a fashion, he for his father somewhat Faustian cries out in the last moments of his life disturbed facing but finally dies sick, and damnation (413-4). The oldest sister, in dutiful, `sober, contrast, is eventually converted to a religious and shining Christian' (391) by the combined forces of her husband and providence. Her delayed but both to her father her husband complete submission and is necessarily accompanied

196 by a modification of her concept of liberty; she no longer considers her father's insistence his full continued on son's repentance and submission to his authority as a

form of `tyranny' but regards the paternal demands as an expression of `affectionate is Concern' (412). She now able to recognise her brother's conduct as `misguided'

and unlawful and even attempts to reform her brother. While the oldest son's conduct

represented a `Warning to Disobedience' (294), Defoe, in the oldest daughter,

appeared to be offering, or perhaps demanding, a path to salvation to those who had

formerly sinned against their superiors. As long as a sincere repentance and full in obedience were apparent the present, past transgressions would and should be

forgiven (391). Defoe, it seems, was echoing his early plea for Whig leniency in The

Secret History. 147

Defoe's narrative of a father's attempt to implement a new family government

was not only highly topical with regard to contemporary politics, but it also clearly

echoed the rhetorical strategy employed by Anglican clerics in their sermons in

opposition to the Jacobite unrests. Defoe's case studies of lawful and unlawful

resistance unambiguously positioned The Family Instructor within this discourse of dutiful obedience and it is therefore not surprising to find clerics recommending

Defoe's book from the pulpit. Further evidence that The Family Instructor was indeed

Defoe's contribution to the campaign against Jacobitism may be found in Part 11of the book, which explores the notion of obedience in the context of master-servant Thomas, relationships. This section sees a `sober, well inclin'd, serious Lad' convert his fellow apprentice Will, a `loose, profligate, prophane Boy' (175), to a religious life. This story is paralleled by that of Thomas' master being brought to a full his duties his by Thomas' father understanding of to apprentices and Will's pious master. The conclusions which are reached and the pledges which are made in this first last for part closely echo those of the and sections: Thomas, example, typically if [the it, I it Duty asserts that you master] command think my to obey you' (234). In is this sense, Part II merely an extension of the discourse of obedience beyond familial constraints.

147 See above, 173

197 In the context of the polemical aim of The Family Instructor, however, Defoe's for including motivation a part on the relationship between masters and apprentices is interest. The Defoe of section suggests that was concerned that masters were not offering enough moral guidance to their apprentices and, as a result, were failing to

regulate the conduct of their surrogate children. The conversion of Thomas' master is by his preceded rejection of any responsibility for his apprentice's moral and spiritual Thomas' well-being, which prompts dutiful father to instruct him to the contrary: I have Duty think you the whole and Authority of a Parent devolv'd upon you... I put him [Thomas] entirely under your Government, suspending my own Authority over him, as a Father; it becomes a necessary Consequence of it, that I entirely committed him to your Care, both Soul and Body; how could this be otherwise? Since as I reserv'd no Power to command him, so I had of course removed him from my Inspection (237- 8)

This passage not only reflects the notion of the chain of power discussed earlier, it

also demonstrates a concern on Defoe's part regarding a lack of government. In the

absence of the father, paternal authority was fully transferred to the master. Yet, if the did master not use this authority to regulate the conduct of his apprentices, they were left effectively ungoverned - the chain of power, which provided the foundation for a well-functioning patriarchal society, was interrupted. The seriousness of this is demands reflected in the categorical made of the master by Thomas' father: have like Master I would you act a and oblige him to do as becomes a Servant, viz. give you an exact Account of his Behaviour: His Time is yours, and you ought to know how he spends it; if any of his Time is employ'd out of your Business, you ought to exact an Account of it from him (242)

it duty Thus, was the of masters to permanently monitor and control the behaviour of their apprentices. Importantly, this constant supervision had to be implemented both in the domestic and the public spheres: it was every master's duty, the reader learns, from Action, to `restrain them every evil whereby they may offend GOD, or wrong their Neighbour' (276).

Defoe, as Rogers' investigation of the social contours of Jacobite disaffection be shows, had every reason to concerned about the conduct of apprentices outside the Petty tradesmen homes of their masters. craftsmen and represented the main source of

198 disaffection and a significant percentage of artisans were journeymen or apprentices. Moreover, Whig journalists had highlighted the involvement of the Bridewell highly apprentices, who were visible due to their blue liveries, in the riotous 148 activities. Bearing in mind that Will's master is a tradesman whose `Employment being a Clothier, caus'd him to take several Apprentices, and several Journey-men'

(174), it seems likely that Defoe had this cohort of rioters in mind when he wrote Part

H of The Family Instructor. This notion is further supported by the circumstances of the first printing of the book. The need for a second edition, as D. C. Ewing has shown, was not so much the result of an overwhelming number of misprinted words 149 but the mis-pagination of the first edition. The pagination problem had occurred because of the late insertion of dialogue five of Part II into the text. Ewing rightly points out that, in terms of the section's cohesion, the final dialogue is not actually necessary, since the narrative structure of the part is `complete without it'. The dialogue forms references in the to ecumenical of worship offer, according to Ewing, its the explanation for inclusion: by stressing the value of both Anglican and nonconformist values, Defoe could `appeal to a wide audience without revealing that 150 the author himself was a Dissenter'. Ewing's explanation, however, somewhat detracts from the actual focus of the dialogue, which, in fact, contains the most duties in extensive section concerning the of masters Part H. In this dialogue, Defoe had reiterates once again that every master the `Duty of taking Care' of his Body'(272), highlighting in apprentice's `Soul and while the clearest possible terms the hierarchical structure of society and the duty of obedience of every member of this `Wives bid patriarchal society: are to submit themselves to their Husbands; Children Servants to obey their Parents; to be Subject to their Masters' (276). In order to had be `in safeguard this patriarchal system, masters to encouraged all that is good, Duty GOD Man, by viz. in their to and and this all possible Methods, such as Advice, but Exhortation, Command, viz. especially by Example' (276), which is, of Part 11 The Family Instructor It course, what of provided. appears plausible to suggest

148 Rogers, `Popular Protest', 84-6 149 D. C. Ewing, `The First Printing of Defoe's Family Instructor', Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 65 (1971), 270 150 Ibid, 271-2

199 involvement high that, as a result of the of a number of apprentices in the riots, Defoe decided include to a section which unambiguously highlighted the duty of masters to control their apprentices.

Family Instructor, The as this chapter has shown, consistently engaged in the discourse of obedience. It permanently exhorted the duty of submission to higher levels powers at all of society and strongly advocated methods to curb licentious is behaviour. There perhaps a slight hint of irony when Defoe talked of the father's `set Family-Government efforts to up a entirely new' (I 11). The father's efforts to use and assert his authority might have been new to the family, but the structures he

implements signal a return to a traditional, strictly patriarchal family government.

Defoe, as Richetti points out, clearly assumed that patriarchy was `simply a neglected force' rather than diminishing and, once it was revived, would lead to the reformation '51 of social conduct.

There appears to be little convincing evidence for the claim that The I"amity

Instructor was Defoe's `ultimate act of opposition' to the Schism Act. 152Given that had Dissenters Defoe publicly encouraged the to flout the new legislation, there was no reason for him to publish a tract which repeatedly asked his readers to abide by the decisions law and respect the of their governors. In the context of the cultural and book's political situation at the time of the composition and publication, as well as issue Defoe's preoccupation with the of Jacobitism in his other publications of the

period, it seems far more plausible to suggest that The Family Instructor was Defoe's

response to the continued, Jacobite-inspired unrest of the years 1714-1716.

The Family Instructor has rightly been viewed as an important marker in the

development of Defoe's fictional writing, forming `a part of Defoe's turn toward 153 However, it is important to that Defoe's longer works . note choice of genre did not increased interest in longer merely reflect an works and perhaps the need for a reliable be income. Rather, it should seen as a shrewd selection during a highly-charged The format period in party politics. of the genre allowed Defoe, at this time under

151 Richetti, `Family, Sex and Marriage', 21 152 Rothman, `Dissent and the Schism Act', 386 153 Novak, 483; also see Sutherland Defoe, 211, and Backscheider, 362

200 from Whig attack the new government, to make a political statement which would have attracted severe criticism if presented in the shape of a standard political treatise. Instructor The Family was a political act which at once defied the ministry's attempts to silence Defoe and countered one of the dominant cultural and political movements of the moment - Jacobitism.

201 Chapter V

`One would have thought this had been an Irony': The Whig Schism, Toland and Defoe.

202 Defoe's political polemic in The Family Instructor was, as the previous chapter has shown, overwhelmingly conservative. While it would be inappropriate to suggest that Defoe's language echoed that of `conservative Tory-royalist antecedents and contemporaries', as Schonhorn suggests is the case four years later in Robinson Crusoe, the rhetoric of obedience and the benefits of strong patriarchal government reverberate through the text. What is clear, however, is that the political rhetoric of

The Family Instructor does represent a clear departure from the Whiggish rhetoric of contractarianism evident in earlier publications such as The True-Born Englishman ' and Jure Divino. The political climate had, of course, changed significantly and with 2 it the nature of Whig political discourse in general. The initial desire of justifying the in events of the Glorious Revolution order to pacify the troubled consciences of both Tories and Whigs gradually gave way to a concern about how the revolution from settlement could be protected High Church and Jacobite attacks. Indeed, to has achieve this some of the establishment Whigs, as Dickinson remarked, were ideological prepared to modify their position to such an extent that the previously became `so become much coveted revolution principles restricted as to virtually to future In the this Whig meaningless as a guide action' .3 context of general shift of ideology, Defoe's conservative stance in The Family Instructor was perhaps not but in book particularly unusual, the absence the of any statement of the right of Whig ideology had resistance is notable, especially since this cornerstone of played a in Defoe's His important significant part political rhetoric. silence on this principle indicated a reorientation with regard to the type of political polemics he felt able and willing to employ.

If The Family Instructor may be considered one of the earliest examples of a in Defoe's more conservative political outlook writing, then a one-hundred page long in 1717 irrefutable for tract published seems to offer evidence a thoroughgoing Defoe's In Defoe, general apostasy on part. what seems an astonishing volte-face, in An Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Enobling Foreigners, Is a

Schonhorn, Defoe'sPolitics, 150 2 Dickinson, 123-26 H. T. Dickinson, `The Eighteenth-Century Debate on the "Glorious Revolution", ' History 61 (1976), 36

203 Treasonable Conspiracy, ostensibly rejected some of those principles he had defended in In his steadfastly the past. particular modified stance concerning a his standing army in peacetime and changed attitude towards the English nobility and

foreigners appear most noteworthy. As one of the main contributors to the standing army controversy, Defoe had campaigned for over two years during the late 1690s for

the retention of a sizable standing force in peacetime. In 1717 disagreement over the

size of the army, which had been legitimised each year by the passing of the Mutiny

Bill, returned to the political agenda when Robert Walpole attacked the supply for the 4 military. Defoe, as Chapter I has shown, had developed his position on the army

question in considerable detail: as long as Parliament controlled supply, he had

argued, a professional military force in peacetime represented no significant threat to

English liberties. In Treasonable Conspiracy, however, he offered a wholesale

rejection of a standing army in peacetime, claiming that it was a thing `justly

esteemed in all Countries, the first Step to the enslaving a free People' (48). In in 1717, essence, Defoe, occupied a position previously held by his country Whig

opponents. Similarly, Defoe's attitude towards foreign immigrants and the English have drastically. nobility appeared to changed In The True-Born Englishman foreigners, while not altogether without their vices, were characterised as morally and ' genealogically superior to the emerging species of Englishman. In particular the had been, Chapter English nobility as II has shown, the focus of Defoe's wrath. English peers derived from `Beggars and Bastards', he claimed, and therefore lacked Honour'. 6 In Treasonable Conspiracy, however, all `Antiquity and England was said to boast an `illustrious' and `ancient Nobility', which, to its detriment, was going to

J.H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole. The Making of a Statesman (London, 1956), 261-64 Defoe described the English as a `compounded Breed' which combined all of the individual vices of the invading nations in one `race' (True-Born Englishman, 89, 11.169-170). Also see Daniel Statt's article `Daniel Defoe and Immigration, ' Eighteenth-Century Studies, 24 (1991), for an account of Defoe's thoughts regarding the great benefits which immigrants would bring to the nation. Statt asserts that 'From the first, [Defoe] was a supporter of schemes to encourage foreigners to settle in England'(295). 6 See above, 96

204 be `so unhappily mix'd with spurious and Foreign Blood', according to recent 7 proposals by parliament.

The vigour with which Defoe pursued these issues in Treasonable Conspiracy and the fact that the rhetorical stance he assumed stood in the starkest of contrasts to the one evident in earlier publications has caused some considerable discomfort among Defoe scholars. Indeed, the tract appears so uncharacteristic for Defoe that, for a considerable period of time, Furbank and Owens felt that the `complications and 8 anomalies' apparent in the pamphlet made the attribution doubtful. It was eventually included in their Critical Bibliography as a `probable' attribution, with the 9 qualification that it remained `one of the greatest puzzles in Defoe bibliography'. The doubts among Defoe scholars with regard to Treasonable Conspiracy are, moreover, it reflected in the relatively scant attention has hitherto received. Sutherland, Moore for from and Backscheider, example, completely omit the tract their biographies, brief just while Novak offers a relatively consideration of over one page, of the fame pamphlet, which concludes somewhat vaguely that the early Defoe achieved Englishman did lend `much his ' 0 with The True-Born not strength to argument'. The in Defoe by present chapter seeks to address this gap studies offering a close reading Conspiracy both in its immediate in of a Treasonable polemical context and the light It of Defoe's earlier publications. proposes that the majority of what Furbank and Owens have called `complications and anomalies' in the tract represent an example of

Defoe's use of irony, which was designed to expose the inconsistencies he perceived in John Toland's A State Anatomy of Great Britain, the publication which he sought is despite Defoe to attack. What becomes apparent that, appearances, returned to and he had English reinforced some of the points made with regard to the nobility during the standing army controversy.

7 Daniel Defoe, An Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Enobling Foreigners, Is a Treasonable Conspiracy against the Constitution, dangerousto the Kingdom, an Affront to the Nobility of Scotland in particular, and Dishonourable to the Peerage of Britain in general (1717), 13 9 Canonisation, 157-60; Furbank & Owens, De-attributions, 95-96 9 Critical Bibliography, xxiv 10 Novak, 496

205 Irony, as one of the foremost scholars on this subject has pointed out, is a " `slippery' and `very messy' subject. Contending that a text or an element of a text

means something other than what it explicitly states always carries with it the risk that

the interpreter has in fact misread the author's words and misunderstood his

intentions. If a text is consistently ironic, like Swift's A Modest Proposal for example,

the pitfalls are perhaps not so many. Defoe's Treasonable Conspiracy, however, is no body such text: it would be unwise to argue that the main of the pamphlet was wholly William III ironic - Defoe's eulogy to towards the end of this part of the pamphlet strongly undermines such a notion - and the extensive appendix seems to represent a by in State straightforward refutation of the various claims made Toland the Anatomy. Moreover, there is no reason why Defoe could not simply have changed his mind with he had decades After regard to opinions expressed almost two earlier. all, he had in be Proteus hack publicly done so the past and was now widely considered to the of journalism. 12 The political and literary contexts of Treasonable Conspiracy suggest

otherwise, however.

The primacy of context for the reconstruction of ironic statements has been 13Rejecting interpreter widely stated. the primary meaning of a statement requires the judgments to make a complex set of assumptions and with regard to the validity of the

literal statement, the perceived incongruity in it, any possible alternative explanations for this incongruity, and the author's views and beliefs. The latter represents, as

Wayne Booth has shown, the most important context for the reconstruction of ironic is likely to statements: a conception of where the author stand with regard to the final 14 ironic statement remains the interpreter's `court of appeal'. in the case of Treasonable Conspiracy the immediate context was provided by what Defoe

described as the `Divisions among the Whigs' (3), which are now commonly known Schism 1717. Therefore, before as the Whig of a reconstruction and evaluation of the Conspiracy ironic content of Treasonable may take place, it is necessary to explore

t' Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago & London, 1974), xi, 2 12 See Chapter IV, 154-56, for Defoe's reputation at this time. 13 See, for example, Booth, Irony, 8; Linda Hutcheon, Irony's Edge. The Theory and politics of Irony (London & New York, 1994), 142-44; Claire Colebrook, Irony (London & New York, 2004), 16-17 14 Booth, Irony, 11,41

206 Defoe's position with regard to the two Whig factions. Moreover, it will also become apparent that a second important context in which Defoe's irony was developed was the standing army controversy of twenty years earlier, a perhaps surprising link which will be addressed in the course of the discussion of Treasonable Conspiracy.

In 1716 the Whigs appeared a united and powerful force: the Jacobite rebellion of the previous year had pushed the Tories further towards the political margins, while the passage into law of the decidedly unWhiggish Septennial Bill, which extended the life of Parliament to seven years, meant that the party could enjoy its position in for power relatively uncontested the foreseeable future. Significantly, however, the leader Whig party lacked a clear - the leadership of the party was shared by Stanhope (Secretary for the Southern Department), Sunderland (Lord Privy Seal), Townshend for Northern Department), Walpole (First Lord Treasury) (Secretary the and of the -- formidable brought and the comfort of the Whigs' position to the surface disagreements with regard to the king's foreign policy, which eventually split the 15As party into two camps. the elector of Hanover, George had a particular concern in interests The protecting Hanoverian on the continent. newly acquired political and Great Britain George military power attached to the crown of allowed and his German foreign in Baltic designed advisors to pursue an aggressive, expansionist policy the to Russia Hanover. 16 Stanhope Sunderland curb the threat posed to and showed themselves to be `understanding of George's dual responsibilities as king and elector' his '7 In Townshend George's and supported plans. contrast, objected to policy, which interests. increase he regarded as not representative of British In an effort to his own Townshend, joined by his brother-in-law Robert political influence, Walpole, both `to attempted to exploit parliament's sensitivity the possibility that British

15 Speck, Stability and Strife, 185-92; Hoppit, Land ofLiberty?, 397-98 16 Derek McKay, `The Struggle for Control of George I's Northern Policy, 1718-19, ' Journal of Modern History 45 (1973), 367-68. For further accounts of the Whig John J. Murray, George schism of 1717-18 see I, the Baltic and the Whig Split of 1717 (London, 1969); Hatton, 180-210; Jeremy Black, `Parliament and the political ' Parliamentary and diplomatic crisis of 1717-18, History 3 (1984). 17 At least until the beginning 1718, when Stanhope, aware of an approaching naval finding conflict with Spain and the cost of defending Hanoverian interests too high, further refused to send a consignment of ships to the Baltic. See Hatton, 194, and Mc Kay, The Struggle for Control of George I's Northern Policy', 374

207 interests were being subordinated to those of Hanover' and a clause of the Act of Settlement which obliged George to secure parliament's consent before engaging in war for the defence of Hanover by demonstrating to George that `parliamentary be support for his foreign policy could only obtained by coming to terms with them'. 18However, Townshend and Walpole's plan backfired. `Differences of opinion over foreign policy, ' as Jeremy Black has pointed out, `were treated as tests of 19 loyalty' and in George's eyes the brothers-in-law had clearly failed this test. Their had, in opposition to George's plans fact, only strengthened the alliance between the king and Stanhope and Sunderland. Townshend, in contrast, was replaced by Sunderland as the Northern Secretary in December 1716 and demoted to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, from which post he was eventually dismissed in April 1717.

Robert Walpole and several other Whigs resigned from their posts the day after

Townshend's dismissal and together went into formed opposition to the 20 for `revival government. Largely tactical reasons, the next three years were to see a Court Country' 21 of the older pattern of against politics.

Townshend and Walpole were strongly criticised for their desertion of the Whig in The Defection Consider 'd (1718). The government, most notably author of the Tindal, Townshend Walpole `a Part pamphlet, Matthew accused and of acting so inconsistent with all former Pretences' and of preventing the `doing of those very Things, they themselves declar'd to be necessary for the publick Safety'. 22 The divisions caused by the two men were once again raising the hopes of the Jacobites in 23 It and could potentially embroil the nation a civil war. was an unaccountable Whigs, to the `chiefly for action, he attacked all opposition put at risk public good, the Sake of a single Person, who, not content with the most beneficial Post, threw up a

18 G. C. Gibbs, `Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Age of Stanhope and Walpole', English Historical Review 77 (1962), 21; Black `Parliament and the political and diplomatic crisis', 78-79 19 Ibid, 79 20 Plumb, Walpole, 241-42; H. T. Dickinson, Walpole and the Whig Supremacy (London, 1973), 49 21 Speck, Stability and Strife, 191 22 [Matthew Tindal], The Defection Consider 'd, And the Designs of those, who divided the Friends of the Government, set in a True Light (1718), 4,5 23 Ibid, 13,21

208 Pet, because he could not govern every Thing'. Not even the hated Tories, with whom the opposition was now collaborating, could be accused of such inconstancy and apostasy. Townshend and Walpole had become `wicked, confederate Servants' who were `ready to sacrifice every Thing, Civil and Sacred' to their `Interest, Ambition, and Revenge'. Tindal's attack on the `deserters' reached a hysterical crescendo when he compared the former Northern Secretary, Townshend, to the `grand Apostate', Satan:

he had once been chief among the good Spirits, and a Favourite of Heaven,... yet puff d up... with Luciferian Pride, and fall'n from his high Station, [he] has since acted the Part of an Angel of Darkness24

Not least by adding this biblical dimension to the Whig split, Tindal was sure to draw the anger of opposition supporters, who indignantly rejected his accusations and comparison as `base Malice', while asserting that Townshend and Walpole had 25 `nothing to answer for'. Surely, the two men's apologists claimed, their conduct was integrity, evidence for their political not apostasy: `to make their Interest give Place to their Judgement, and to postpone all selfish and private Views' was, as one anonymous writer typically claimed, the `Result of a Solid and well grounded Sense 26 of Duty and Allegiance'.

If one disregards the partisanship and hyperbole present in the commentary of both sides, Tindal's assessment of the opposition Whigs appears to have been closer to the truth. In their efforts to inconvenience the Stanhope ministry at every turn, both

Townshend and Walpole were prepared to abide by the rules of political expedience follow For Whig rather than their convictions. example, when the schism emerged in late 1716, Townshend was vigorously advocating the continuation of the persecution former Oxford, despite having become of Defoe's patron, convinced that the `charge be dropped'. 27 Yet, Townshend of High Treason should within six months was to

24 Ibid, 10-11,28-29 25 [George Sewell], The Resigners Vindicated: Or, the Defection Re-Consider'd (1718), 7,31 26 The Defection Detected: Or, Faults laid on the right Side (1718), 15 27 See Clyve Jones, `The Impeachment of the Earl of Oxford and the Whig Schism of 1717: Four New Lists, ' in Peers, Politics and Power. i'he House of Lords 1603-19/ 1, C. Jones & D. L. Jones, eds, (London & Ronceverte, 1986), 185,190, for information on Townshend's conduct with regard to Oxford's impeachment.

209 change his mind: in order to embarrass the government in the House of Lords and oblige the opposition's new Tory allies, he began to defend Oxford from the charges and was indeed instrumental in his release. Townshend continued to openly work against the king, who had wanted to see Oxford punished for his part in the Peace of Utrecht, and repeatedly blocked the funds George was seeking in order to deal with hostile Swedish designs. 28

Similarly, Walpole began to oppose virtually every action of the government in the Commons, despite the fact that `he and his friends had largely been responsible 29 for the programme which the ministry proposed to undertake'. His confidence of best in his Stanhope success is perhaps reflected threat to that `every unprejudiced 30 whig of any consequence or consideration' would support the opposition. By May 1717 Walpole and his supporters had indeed gained their first victory over Stanhope's have ministry when they supported a Tory motion to a prominent High-Church House. In following Walpole clergyman preach to the the months, too performed a by further complete volte-face refusing to support the prosecution of Oxford, while backbenchers succeeding in rousing the over the size of the standing army George desired. In the next session, Walpole committed perhaps the greatest apostasy by the Occasional Conformity Schism Acts, speaking against the repeal of and which the king himself had promised, and which the former head of the treasury had vigorously during the 31 It be that Walpole's opposed previous reign . might noted prediction he his brother-in-law borne concerning the support and would receive was not out. Walpole, and by implication Townshend, had in fact been `rejected by the weightiest Whig into their section' of the party when they went opposition and subsequent them further from former friends. 32 In conduct only alienated their particular the the Occasional Conformity Schism Acts opposition's rejection of a repeal of and was blatant betrayal basic Whig His widely considered a of a principle. attempt at

29 Black, `Parliament and the political and diplomatic crisis', 79; Jones, `The Impeachment of the Earl of Oxford', 186 29 Plumb, Walpole, 248; Dickinson, Walpole, 51 30 Cited in Plumb, Walpole, 245 31 Speck, Stability and Strife, 191-92; Dickinson, Walpole, 52; Plumb, Walpole, 249 32 Plumb, Walpole, 244

210 justifying his conduct convinced few of the governmental or opposition Whigs and he 33 was in fact deserted by some of his allies.

Defoe's first comment on the Whig schism came in January 1717, a month after

Townshend's demotion to the lord lieutenancy of Ireland, in the tract The Danger of Court Differences: Or, the Unhappy Effects of a Motley Ministry. Here, Defoe assumed a rather ambivalent stance with regard to recent events in the government. This may be due to the fact that, while the split within the ministry was already widely known at this point, the extent and nature of Townshend and Walpole's had become 34 opposition to the ministry not yet clear. Employing an at times Defoe for viciously ironic tone of voice, attacked the party as a whole allowing the rift to occur. Since the Whigs were `honest Men' and `no Fools', he stated, they could not but heed the warning the consequences of divisions in past ministries had given them.

Surely, he remarked, the current rumours of a split within the party could only be `a News'. 35 in meer piece of Jacobite Bearing mind that Townshend and Walpole had discontent, Defoe be not wanted to hide their appeared to carefully manoeuvring his logical Since readers toward the only one conclusion. the split was not a Jacobite fiction but general, verifiable knowledge, the Whigs must be fools. Projecting the split late distinct within Harley's ministry onto the present case, Defoe, with a air of bitterness, reminded the Whigs of how they had Upbraided the Tories with their corrupt Administration, their gratifying their Avarice, their Ambition, their Revenge; with betraying their Queen, and Country, and Posterity, to push their separate Interests;... how did we laugh at them for Fools in their Politicks, weakening and destroying their new Schemes, and blowing up all their own Mines, by breaking among 36 themselves, and dividing into Factions and Parties.

The Whigs, Defoe thus implied, were hypocritical and unprincipled. He even went as for far as to question their suitability office. Did the split within Harley's ministry not fit for Post in? ', he tell them that `they were not the they were asked rhetorically. If

33 Dickinson, Walpole, 52 34 British diplomats began to express their concerns about the potentially harmful effect international during January 1717. of domestic quarrels on affairs See Black, `Parliament and the Political and Diplomatic Crisis', 88 35 Daniel Defoe, The Danger of Court Differences: Or, the Unhappy Effects of a Motley Ministry. Occasion 'd by the Report of Changes at Court (1717), 31-36 36 Ibld, 37

211 this was true for the Tories, than surely it must also be true for the Whigs. Defoe's conclusion echoed what he had been asserting with regard to the Whigs for the last few years: for `these Men to fall out, to divide into Factions and parties, what would it be, but to tell the World, that they are not the Men they have been taken for'. 37

The Danger of Court Differences was almost immediately followed by Defoe's second pamphlet concerned with the Whig split, The Quarrel of the School-Boys at

Athens, as lately acted at a School near Westminster. The tract was a satirical allegory of the developments within the Whig party. Defoe compared the government to a school, which, during the absence of the schoolmaster, `became a Scene of Confusion 38 and Disorder'. The schoolmaster was, of course, George I, who had travelled to Hanover in 1716, while the unruly students, each divided into forms and headed by caricatures of the leading men in the ministry, represented the two houses of

Parliament. As in the previous pamphlet, Defoe did not take sides but concentrated on highlighting the notion that the Whigs as a whole had become consumed by sell' interest once they came to power: `... the Concern for the publick Good of the School, which was their duty, and ought to have been their disinterested Care, was quite forgot, or turned almost wholly to the forming of Parties and Interest to supplant and 39 to undermine one another'. The current Whig government was `no better than those that went before them' and from their actions it was clear that rather than govern for the good of the nation, `they meant no other than their own private Interest and Glory'. 40While he resisted coming down overtly on one side, Defoe clearly harboured strong feelings with regard to the conduct of the Whigs and their apparent self- destructive tendencies.

Defoe's recent employment history can provide at least some illumination with his regard to where allegiances lay during the Whig Schism. Scholarship on Defoe's political liaisons during this period has regularly highlighted that his `sympathies seemed to lie strongly with Walpole and the Whig opposition', which, of course,

37 Ibid, 40-41 38 Daniel Defoe, The Quarrel of the School-Boys at Athem, as lately acted at a School near Westminster (1717), 8 39 Ibid, 28 40 Ibid, 32-33

212 41 included Townshend. Yet, as recent research into Defoe's involvement in 42 contemporary periodicals has shown, this assertion is rather misleading. In a letter dated 26 April 1718, Defoe explained to Charles De La Faye, Under-Secretary in the office of Stanhope's Northern Department, his recent role as a government employee.

According to Defoe, Townshend had employed him as a press-spy to engage in a `Little Peice [sic] of Secret Service' two years earlier in 1716.43The former Northern

Secretary, Defoe explained, had suggested that he should appear `as before under the

Displeasure of the Governmt; and Seperated From the Whiggs'. In this `kind of

Disguise' Defoe was to take `the sting' out of a number of Tory newspapers, in such a manner that they `Will be allwayes kept (mistakes Excepted) To Pass as Tory Papers, and yet be Dissabled and Ennervated, So as to do no Mischief or give any Offence to the Govrnmt'. 44However, Furbank and Owens have convincingly shown that Defoe's work on these newspapers did not, in fact, assist the ministry but in reality undermined government policies. In particular Defoe's project Mercurius Politecus, which was begun in May 1716, showed `no signs at all of having been tampered with or emasculated, and indeed (if anything) got a shade more anti-Government in tone as 45 time went on'. In fact, the available evidence suggests that Defoe himself had founded this Tory journal, thereby adding to rather than reducing the troubles of `the 46 Ministry of My Lord Townshend'. The implication of this is that Defoe was

41 Novak, 495; also see Sutherland, Defoe, 214, J.R. Moore, Daniel Defoe. Citizen of'the Modern World. (Chicago, 1958), 218, and Backscheider, 392-94. These accounts of Defoe's political allegiances are to a significant extent based on texts which have now been de-attributed, in particular An Impartial Enquiry into the Conduct of the Right Honourable Charles Lord Viscount T---- and The Conduct of Robert Walpxole (both 1717). On the matter of attribution see P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, `Defoe, Trent, and the "Defection", ' Review of English Studies 44: 3 (1993), 70-76 42 P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, `Defoe and "Sir Andrew Politick", ' British Journal_for Eighteenth-Century Studies 17: 1 (Spring 1994), 27-39; P.N. Furbank & W. R. Owens, `Defoe, the De la Faye letters and Mercurius Politicus, ' British. lournal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 23: 1 (Spring 2000), 13-19 43 Defoe to Charles De La Faye, 26 April 1718, in Healey, Letters, 451 44 Ibid, 451-53. The first paper Defoe mentioned was The Shift shifted but apparently, this project was `Lay'd aside'. The newspapers Defoe did work on were Dormer's Newsletter (no copies of the publication from this period appear to have survived), Politicus (May 1716 Mercurius - December 1720) and Mist 's Weekly Journal (various contributions during 1718). 45 Furbank & Owens, `Defoe, the De la Faye letters and Mercurius 1'oliticus', 15 46 Ibid, 16; Defoe to Charles De La Faye, 26 April 1718, in Healey, Letters, 451

213 deceiving Townshend and sabotaging the former secretary's plans from the very his beginning of employment as a `press spy'. This, in combination with the fact that he chose not to express any words of support for the Walpole-Townshend opposition, he have done which might easily enough in the two anonymously published pamphlets referred to above, undermines the notion that Defoe's allegiance lay with the two brothers-in-law.

While Defoe's initial response to the Whig schism was one of indignant general condemnation, Toland's account of the current state of political affairs in the Stale- by `deliberate 47 Anatomy was marked a unrealism'. In the format of a letter to a diplomat, fictitious foreign Toland announced in his introduction that he was going to present the `real State of Great Britain... with regard to all its Parties and Interests 48 foreign or domestick'. Yet, his commentary did anything but reflect faithfully the political status quo. The pamphlet began with a panegyric on George I and, in order to document the unrealistic tone of Toland's pamphlet, it will be useful to quote the opening passage in its entirety: Such of the avow'd enemies of King GEORGE's Title, as have any remains of sense or honour, make no objections against his person. They are charm'd with his very looks and countenance, which they truely observe, give the highest indications of good humour and the sweetest temper; join'd to a penetrating genius, and judicious steddiness of Mind. What they have been so often told, before his happy accession to the his Throne, of Wisdom, Temperance, Frugality, Justice, Affability, and Application to business, with his other private and publick virtues innumerable, appears by his daily conduct, nor to have been the effects of flattery, but of exact and well-weigh'd observation. 49

The picture which Toland presented of the king was unusual in at least two ways.

Firstly, George, as Hatton has pointed out, `did not impress his new subjects by looks 50 or majestic behaviour'. Indeed, his failure to appear `charming' in public had led (wrongly) 5' some of his subjects to question his intelligence. Secondly, George's past actions did not necessarily indicate a man of `Temperance' and `Justice'. He kept his

47 Furbank & Owens, Canonisation, 159 State 48 John Toland, The Anatomy of Great Britain (1717), 2 av Ibid, 3 50 Hatton, 170 51 See Chapter IV, 162-63

214 divorced wife, Sophia Dorothea, in permanent confinement as punishment for her infidelity and possibly even had her lover killed. Moreover, George had himself been unfaithful and was enjoying an affair with a less than attractive German mistress.

None of the above suggested `private virtues innumerable' on the king's part. 52In any case, how English subjects, including Toland, could have judged his character by his

`daily conduct' remained a mystery - George had been in Germany for the six months S3 prior to the publication of the State-Anatomy. It might also be remarked that

Toland's reputation must have provided a strange inflection on the above cited

passage: in the 1690s he was widely regarded as `a violent and controversial firebrand, incautious in his enmity to the institution of monarchy, and disreputable in 54 his religious conduct and beliefs'. To be sure, Toland had subsequently advocated a

limited monarchy and supported the Hanoverian succession, but his public image was

still closely associated with anti-monarchical ideas in 1717. The republican overtones

of the State Anatomy led one hostile contemporary to comment that Toland wanted to 55 `frame a new constitution'. Toland himself was clearly aware of his reputation and

made a point of asserting that he was not `for the sovereignty of a Parliament and privy-Council, exclusive of all Regal Government whether limited or unlimited'. 56

Toland's strongly idealised description of George in the context of his own public

image made for strange reading indeed.

The opening passage of the State Anatomy set the tone for the manner in which

the current state of English politics was represented in the tract. Thus, for example,

Toland claimed that the Prince of Wales was a `dutiful' son to George when, in fact, further from 57 king had nothing could have been the truth. The grown increasingly

more estranged from his son and when he departed for Hanover in the summer of 1716, he ensured that the prince enjoyed only a heavily circumscribed regency.

Affronted by his father's actions, Prince George established a rival court at St James',

which became a focal point for the Whig opposition. George eventually ordered his

52 Ibid, 49-62; Speck Stability and Strife, 172 53 Ibid, 189; Hoppit Land ofLiberty?, 400 54 Champion, Republican Learning, 93 s5 Ibid, 146 56 Toland, State-Anatomy, 9 57 Ibid, 88

215 son to leave the palace in December in an attempt to neutralise the prince's subversive 58 machinations. In addition, Toland completely ignored the recent split within the Whig ministry: there were, he asserted, `not such divisions among our Ministers... that 59 no two of them cou'd trust one another'. Instead of lamenting and condemning the apparent disunion among the ministry, Toland celebrated the four central figures in the Whig schism for their outstanding abilities and their immovable loyalty to George:

Sunderland, the reader learned, was `famous for his unshaken love of Liberty',

Townshend was `remarkable for his good nature', Walpole was praised for his

`extraordinary Eloquence and Ability', especially with regard to national finances, and lastly, Stanhope was described as `honourable and brave'. `[l]f you consider all this, ' Toland asked his readers, `how was it possible for the King to make a better choice? ' It was surely no flattery to say that `no Prince in Europe is blest with more G0 loyal, able, vigilant, or honest Ministers than King GEORGE '. In the context of

George's actual public reputation, his strained relationship with his son and the public by desire for split within the ministry -a split which was characterised a plain power rather than a concern for George's interests, it is difficult not to view the above George be statements as ironical. Given that Toland's account of can said to be leading strongly exaggerated and that his unqualified praise of the Whig ministers blatantly misrepresented the status quo of the Whig party, his final affirmation that his have in reader would `find that I given you right information every matter' may be

considered a final marker which highlighted that in reality not everything was as it State-Anatomy. 61 himself issue in appeared in the Indeed, Defoe raised the Treasonable Conspiracy when he remarked that Toland's pamphlet contained so StateAnatomy] had been many insolent untruths that `one would have thought [the an Irony'. 62 Significantly, in contrast to their literal meaning, Toland's ironic statements highlight his lack only served to the shortcomings of the king and of control over the

ministry. The king, in reality, offered little to no `Wisdom, Temperance, Frugality,

58 Hatton, 201-10; Speck, Stability and Strife, 189; Hoppit, Land ofLiherty?, 401-2 59 Toland, State-Anatomy, 102 60 Ibid, 95-96 61 Ibid, 103 62 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 14

216 Justice, Affability'. This message was, of course, entirely congruent with the anti- monarchical tendencies of Toland and other radical Whigs.

However, Toland's tract also contained much which was clearly not ironic. For example, his defence of the country or old Whigs from accusations of republicanism, which their notion of a Polybian constitution allegedly encouraged, strongly echoed the rhetoric of the anti-army campaign of the late 1690s and was thus unlikely to mean anything other than what was stated. Toland began his refutation with a pledge of allegiance to the king, claiming that there was not one republican in England who wanted to overturn the monarchy. Rather, he paid lip-service to the king: there was a general consensus that the monarchy represented the `very first of our three Estates' 63 and was therefore `essential to our Constitution'. This `Commonwealth' government insisted that the term `commonwealth' `free' than `republican' - Toland meant rather forms in England. `[W]hoever - was apparently one of only two viable of government is not for this form of Government', the StateAnatomy gradually assumed a partisan stance, `is for absolute hereditary Monarchy'. In a later section the reader learnt that this distinction could be readily transferred to party politics: the Whigs, Toland repeatedly insisted, were `asserters of Liberty', the Tories `abettors of Tyranny'. This was, of course, a gross misrepresentation, since it ignored that the majority of the Tories actually supported the Hanoverian succession, while the majority of the Whigs 64 did not share Toland's commonwealth principles.

Toland's rhetoric subsequently became increasingly more `old Whig' in described limited complexion. His definition of the royal powers tellingly a strictly monarchy: the king enjoyed the `entire executive power, and one third part of the Legislative in their assenting and negative Voice'. Moreover, this first of the three estates had control of the militia and was the `generalissimo' of the standing army. What Toland failed to state explicitly, however, was that, by virtue of their inbuilt majority, the other two thirds of the legislative power, the two Houses of Parliament, actually determined the powers of the executive and the size of the army. In essence this meant that in Toland's constitutional construct, the king's powers were severely

63 Toland, State-Anatomy, 8-9 64 ]bid, 10-11,14

217 limited and under the constant control of parliament. The dominance of parliament in

Toland's scheme is reinforced by a final emphasis of the supremacy of the nation's

legal establishment, as determined by Lords and Commons: we have a `Government

of Laws enacted for the common good of all the people... as they are represented in 65 Parliament'. The king was notable by his absence from Toland's government of laws.

Another section which did not appear to show any evidence of an ironic

undercurrent was concerned with the issue of a standing army during peace time.

However, while Toland had shown consistency with regard to his constitutional ideas,

here he completely abandoned the position with which he had become associated

during the standing army controversy. His initial comment that, if the nation was in a

clear and imminent danger of a foreign invasion, an army needed to be raised and kept

`on foot till we have made Peace with our enemy, or conquer'd him' was perhaps fellow it uncontroversial enough - Toland's anti-army propagandists, seems valid to suggest, would have felt able to agree with this proposal. What followed, however,

was an astonishing volte-face. The man who had repeatedly condemned the notion of

professional peace-time forces now reproduced, almost verbatim, court Whig rhetoric in favour of a standing army: But supposing us not invaded by Strangers, not so disturb'd by Subjects, neither obstructed in our Trade, nor call'd upon by our Allies, we ought nevertheless at all times maintain such a competent land and seaforce, as will render us considerable to our neighbours... to deprive others of all hopes to surpize us unprepar'd... Tis agreed on all hands, that in Great Britain and Ireland, we must ever keep some forces on foot; and such a method will questionless be found out by the Parliament, as will be sufficient to maintain our reputation 66 abroad, and tranquility at home, without any diminution of our Liberty.

The necessity of providing a military deterrent to prevent foreign invasion attempts

had, of course, been the most widely used argument in the pro-army literature of the 67 1690s. Toland was clearly conceding this point now and had abandoned his earlier

stance. Indeed, his feeble justification for the proposal implicitly acknowledged his

65 Ibid, 12-13 66 Ibid, 59 67 See Chapter 1,48-51

218 No-one act of apostasy. ought to assume that he was `pleading here for a standing in Army, the sense our nation understands it; that is, a greater army than our foreign or domestick concerns require'. He was merely demanding sufficient numbers to deal

with any potential threat. Anything other than that, Toland confidently asserted, would be `inconsistent with all I have written... and my own Principles' 6" Again, . Toland's aim was identical with that of the court campaign twenty years earlier and

his vain attempt to disguise this fact only served to highlight his apostasy more

clearly. The possibility that this passage might contain an ironical subtext may be for safely discounted two reasons: firstly, it did not offer any ironic markers such as

clearly contradictory or hyperbolic statements and, secondly, in the context of the

growing Swedish/Jacobite threat which eventually culminated in the Gyllenborg plot

in April 1717, the demand for a military deterrent was anything but unreasonable or 69 absurd. Toland, it seems, had simply changed his mind with regard to one of the

cornerstones of country Whig political ideology.

What Defoe and his contemporaries were faced with in Toland's StateAnatomy,

then, was a curious combination of seemingly ironic statements, a restatement of the

author's ideas concerning the English constitution, and genuine assertions which

clearly contradicted Toland's known principles. That Defoe took a dim view of

Toland's beliefs, both political and religious, had become apparent on several

occasions during the last two decades. The two men had first clashed over the issue of

a standing army in the late 1690s and, by implication, the nature of the English

monarchy, although after the controversy, Defoe's attacks on Toland usually

concerned his religious views. Defoe categorically rejected Toland's Deism and unorthodox views concerning the Trinity, which had become apparent as early as

1696 in the tract Christianity Not Mysterious. In the Reformation of Manners, for described example, Defoe Toland as an hypocritical and unprincipled Socinian, who,

on the one hand, rejected some of the pillars of orthodox Christianity as `Excess', yet, on the other hand, Covets without Rule or End,

68 Toland, StateAnatomy, 59 69 Hatton, 199; Plumb, Walpole, 241

219 Will sell his Wife, his Master, or his Friend. To boundless Avarice a constant Slave, Unsatisfy'd as Death, and greedy as the Grave. 70

Only a year before the appearance of the State-Anatomy, Defoe once again attacked the Irishman. In the issue of August 1716 of Mercurius Politicus, Defoe bitterly

criticised the Whigs for not disowning a deist like Toland and, indeed, subsequently

he `set himself against the heresies of Toland... as fiercely as he could through a wide 71 variety of rhetorical approaches'. Treasonable Conspiracy represented one part of

Defoe's campaign against his country Whig opponent and in this tract, he used a

rhetorical strategy which was remarkably similar to the one employed by Toland in the State Anatomy. This time, Defoe, as shall become apparent, answered his old 72 enemy's `fancy'd Rhetorick' in kind. Moreover, there is a considerable amount of evidence in Treasonable Conspiracy that suggests that the tract was first and foremost directed at Toland, rather than the government.

An immediately apparent feature of Defoe's tract is that it did not addressthe entire content of StateAnatomy. Defoe's counter attack was, in fact, highly selective in its approach. Toland had discussed some fifteen separate topics in his tract, including issues such as the fundamental differences between Whigs and Tories, 73 credit and trade, and the universities. Yet, Defoe largely ignored most of the issues his adversary had raised and focussed on just three: the admission of foreign noblemen to the House of Lords, standing forces, and the Dissenters. The latter was addressed in two comparatively brief chapters on the `Difference between tolerating differing Opinions, and tolerating different Religions'. In these sections, Defoe, beside attacking Toland once again for his deist beliefs, restated his belief that the differences between the Church of England and the Dissenters with regard to doctrinal

70 Daniel Defoe, Reformation of Manners, A Satyr (1702) in Satire, Vol. 1,163,11.230-4. The passage quoted here ostensibly refers to Toland's patron, Sir Robert Clayton. It however, should be noted, that Toland is referred to by name four lines earlier ('Socinian Told is labelled Clayton's `Ghostly Priest') and that Defoe subsequently leaves the target of his satire ambiguous enough to implicate Toland in the behaviour described. 71 Novak, 501,525 72 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 97 73 Toland, State-Anatomy, `Table of Contents'

220 matters and church government were irreconcilable, thus largely echoing the opinions 74 Defoe had expressed during the Occasional Conformity controversy. The greatest part of Treasonable Conspiracy was concerned with the first two topics, however: approximately half of the pamphlet dealt with the issue of ennobling foreigners, while the standing army issue took up a further quarter. This is significant. The standing army controversy of the late 1690s had seen Defoe and Toland clash on these two issues in a highly public fashion and both men had become firmly associated with their respective points of view. In Defoe's case, the controversy had even resulted in his greatest commercial success to date, The True-Born Englishman. Defoe's decision to dedicate three-quarters of his pamphlet to issues which had formed key themes during that earlier controversy was no accident, since, as shall become apparent, it was only in the context of the army debate that Treasonable Conspiracy developed its full polemic force.

It will be useful here to briefly recapitulate the positions Defoe and Toland had taken during the standing army controversy. In their efforts to undermine the ministerial pro-army campaign, the country opposition, of which Toland was a leading member, had focused on the issue of political corruption. The modern political tool of crown patronage, they insisted, had all but eliminated the independence of politicians and corrupted the entire governmental structure. As part of their attack on the perceived corruption of modern courtiers, the anti-army writers constantly presented their model of incorruptibility, the ancient nobility. The peers were, in fact, the most important element in the country Whig theory of the balanced governmental triad of King, Lords and Commons. Morally superior to both of the other two branches, the nobility acted as an intermediary between king and Commons 75 in the event of any transgressive behaviour on either side. Toland's esteem for the nobility was so great that he even excluded them from the Harringtonian rotation model which was designed to prevent corruption and which represented a key concept in country Whig ideology. Virtually incorruptible, the peers could remain in their military posts of Lords Lieutenants indefinitely, unless the king decreed otherwise. 76

'^ Ibid, 71 75 See Chapter 1,39; Chapter II, 89 76 Toland, Militia Reform 'd, 48-49

221 has Defoe, as Chapter II shown, had offered a sustained attack on this aspect of country Whig ideology in The True-Born Englishman. The picture of the English nobility offered in the poem was diametrically opposed to the opposition's glorified model of incorruptibility. According to Defoe, the English nobility were merely

`Rascals... enrich'd' (208) who had risen from a common `Crowd of Rambling

Thieves and Drones' (237). Any claims to moral superiority were untenable, since every invading nation had bestowed its vices on the English character. If anything,

Defoe proposed in The True-Born Englishman, English Lords were an inversion of the country Whigs' classical incorruptible politician.

In many ways it made perfect sense for Defoe to return to the topic of the English nobility in 1717. In order to reward them for their services to the kingdom and to strengthen his own position in the Lords, Stanhope was advancing a bill which was designed to create peerages for George's foreign advisors, the German Barons

Bothmer and Bernstorff and the Huguenot Jean de Robethon. Toland wholeheartedly supported this proposal in the State-Anatomy, which, in a more general sense, represented a `blanket endorsement of government and `German' policy'. " After offering a strongly xenophile general view of foreign immigrants, he no less than demanded that the king's principal advisors be rewarded for hazarding their lives in the interest of the English nation. To deny these `Patriot' foreigners peerages, he 78 claimed, would `savour of ingratitude and partiality'. The House of Lords had thus not only made a return to the sphere of political discourse but, importantly, Defoe's old enemy had once again involved himself in the discussion. Bearing in mind the enormous success of The True-Born Englishman, it can be of little surprise that Defoe decided to attack a radical Whig on an issue which had earned him a major triumph two decades earlier once more. This time, however, the positions had changed entirely, since Toland's State Anatomy strongly echoed the xenophile sentiments of

Defoe's famous verse satire. Consequently, the way to a successful attack lay in taking the opposite direction.

77 Critical Bibliography, 169 78 Toland, StateAnatomy, 57

222 Defoe followed exactly this strategy in Treasonable Conspiracy and he duly negated virtually everything he had said in The True-Born Englishman. The tone of voice he assumed was one of outrage and disgust. How could `any British Reader see such an Assertion in Print, and not be fill' d with Abhorrence and Execration? ', he attacked the author of the State Anatomy. If the Lords were to consent to the admission of `spurious and Foreign Blood' into the House, they would be `Murtherers 79 of their own Honour' and bring `Infamy' on themselves. Significantly, Defoe's anti- foreign sentiments in Treasonable Conspiracy almost exclusively centred around the notions of racial purity and (un-)interrupted genealogy and thus he clearly returned to the central concerns of The True-Born Englishman. This time, however, he appeared to be taking a stance that was reminiscent of Tutchin's The Foreigners. From the outset, the reader is told that it was the `prostituting the illustrious Blood of our Nobility to Foreigners' to which the author objected. The honour of a peerage, he claimed, was `anciently incommunicable but to Men of Birth and Blood' and only a 80 `Son of the same Race' ought to enjoy this privilege. The focus then gradually shifted from the notion of the racial purity of the nobility to the nature of the House of Lords. The consciences of the peers, the reader learned, was just as clear of any pollution as their genes: Untainted in Honour, calm and mature in deliberating, impartial in judging; when in passing Sentence you lay your Hands upon your uncorrupted Hearts, how much superior is it allowed to be, even to an Oath sworn by the ETERNAL GOD! 81

Defoe invited his readers to conclude that, due to their supposedly uninterrupted lineage, English Lords were whiter than white, even to the extent at which their judgement became divine. Defoe's prolonged use of hyperbole in his "character" of the British nobility noticeably stood out: the Lords were variously `Illustrious and

August', a `Fountain of Honour' and the `greatest Body, and most considerable of its 82 Kind'. It is difficult to imagine how Defoe could possibly have created a greater contrast between the respectively xenophile and xenophobe contents of The %rue-

79 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 11-13 80 Ibid, 5,19,22 81 Ibid, 19 82 Ibid, 12,15,18

223 Born Englishman and Treasonable Conspiracy and the opposing characterisations of the nobility which the two publications offered. It is this glaring disparity between these two stances which has baffled scholars and, it seems, prevented any further

scrutiny of Defoe's pamphlet. Critical evaluations of Treasonable Conspiracy have tended to view the `very chauvinistic attitudes' it displays as genuine and, in an

attempt to explain the uncharacteristic nature of the tract, suggested that Defoe was

perhaps so blinded by his enthusiasm to attack Toland that he `failed to realise quite how fatally he was laying himself open to the charge of self-contradiction'. 113The

possibility that Defoe's newly acquired xenophobia was perhaps a deliberate

rhetorical tactic and that the pamphlet might represent, in parts at least, an ironic

attack on Toland has hitherto not been considered, although there is strong textual

evidence to suggest this.

Northrop Frye has pointed out that, in order for an ironic attack to be effective,

the attacker must commit himself and his readers, `if only by implication, to a moral 84 in his hyperbolic standard'. As we have seen, Defoe provided this moral standard

praise of the allegedly uncorrupted nature of the English nobility, both with regard to its moral integrity and its racial purity. This standard was, of course, not his but

Toland's and in order for his irony to have the desired effect, Defoe had to somehow in for alert his readers to this. Wayne Booth has observed that, order a reader to be able to reconstruct the meaning of stable ironies, s/he requires markers which indicate that the literal meaning of a statement must be rejected. These markers are found between ironic it either in the relations the statement and the context to which refers beliefs. s5 A and/or in what the reader knows of the author's knowledge or `deliberate illogicality' in these relations can be understood as an `invitation to join the author in

denouncing the absurdity of things'. 86Defoe, it can be shown, provided markers both

with regard to Treasonable Conspiracy's immediate political context and his own beliefs.

83 Furbank & Owens Canonisation, 157-60; idem De-attributions, 96; Furbank and Owens have offered the most extensive commentary on Treasonable Conspiracy. For a further brief discussion which reads the pamphlet literally see Novak, 495-96. 84 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957), 225 85 Booth, Irony, 8-11 86 Ibid, 75

224 The first ironic marker Defoe offered lay in the picture he presented of the

House of Lords: it clearly did not reflect accurately the actual state of the House or the assembly's history. It was widely known that as a result of the split in the ministry, the Lords had become deeply divided and its session had in fact seen very little of the

`calm and mature' deliberations emphasised by Defoe. In addition, the actions of the peers could hardly be described as honourable: in order to demonstrate his political value to the king, the leader of the opposition in the Lords, Townshend, began `openly 87 to work against the king' by obstructing George's plans. Moreover, the behaviour of opposition was not attributed to any high principles but to an `insatiable lust for power 88 and money'. In this context, it might also be remarked that Townshend had a `violent temper', which he regularly failed to control. 89

It would have been difficult for Defoe's readers not to take note of the stark contrast between Defoe's greatly idealised picture of the peers and the present, highly partisan state of the House. However, this was perhaps not so true with regard to his assertions concerning the supposed racial purity of the nobility. To highlight the ironic nature of this element of his account of the nobility, Defoe appears to have included a series of markers in Treasonable Conspiracy which referred the reader to his earlier account of the origins of England's peers, The True-Born Englishman. In what is arguably the clearest allusion to the poem, Defoe commented that it was inconceivable that

the Peerage of Great Britain will consent to debase itself any farther, by admitting Foreign Families into the Rank of Nobility, and give Occasion for more Satyrs to be written and jested with over the World, upon the 90 Mixtures, and unknown Originals of our Peers.

The True-Born Englishman had of course been the most famous early eighteenth- century satire on the origins of the English nobility and, significantly, further editions of it appeared in London in 1716 and in Edinburgh in 1717. The poem therefore still

`The 87 Clyve Jones, Impeachment of the Earl of Oxford and the Whig Schism of 1717: Four New Lists', in C. Jones & D. L. Jones (eds), Peers, Politics and Power. The House of Lords 1603-1911 (London & Ronceverte, 1986), 186; Black, `Parliament and the political and diplomatic crisis', 79 88 Kenyon, Revolution Principles, 190 89 Speck, Stability and Strife, 186 90 Ibid, 16

225 attracted public interest and Defoe clearly wanted to ensure that his readers recognised it as an important context for Treasonable Conspiracy and, significantly, as a genuine representation of his beliefs. Importantly, he reiterated the above message in several places. In what appears to be an initial reference to his satirical treatment of the nobility, Defoe expressed astonishment at those who wanted to award peerages to foreigners. Surely, he stated, These Men must be perfectly ignorant of the Reproaches cast upon our ancient Nobility, and the Dishonour it has already been to that illustrious Body, to have had so many foreign Families, upon various Occasions, engrafted into the Rank of the Nobility91

Two pages later, Defoe once again drew attention to the nobility's genealogical impurity by highlighting that if recent proposals became law, `further Mixtures in the

Blood' of the peers would follow. On another occasion, Defoe again explicitly emphasised that the nobility's `Dignity' had already been `depreciated' and that the 92 peers' `Honour of Antiquity' had already `too much abated'. Defoe's repeated explicit references to the fact that the British nobility could not boast an uninterrupted lineage strongly indicated that his character of the Lords was indeed highly ironic.

The readily apparent effects of the Whig schism and the allusion to satires like The True-Born Englishman completely undercut Defoe's picture of the `illustrious' assembly and subverted the moral standard to which the reader had temporarily been committed. The rhetorical effect was the realisation that English peers were, in fact, Conspiracy's corrupt and corruptible and, by implication, that Treasonable attack on foreigners was wholly spurious. In this sense, Defoe had simply continued the attack Englishman. on country Whig ideas which he had begun with The True-Born

Defoe's polemical strategy of creating an absurd image of the nobility which was then immediately undermined by numerous allusions to a text that was highly image subversive of this indicates that his own apostasy was entirely deliberate. Moreover, the huge discrepancy between Treasonable Conspiracy and The True-Born

Englishman seemed to be an open invitation to accusations of hypocrisy against himself and it is not stretching the point to suggest that Defoe was possibly laying a

91 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 12 92 Ibid, 18-19

226 trap for his adversary. One of the strongest appeals of irony is that it is `essentially, avowedly and positively elitist' because it accepts, and indeed thrives on, the possibility that an unenlightened reader or someone who is not privy to the context 93 will be excluded from the actual meaning of the text. More specifically, it is usually the target of irony who remains excluded from the subversive meaning of the ironical statement, since, as Booth has pointed out, `every reader will have the greatest difficulty detecting irony that mocks his own beliefs or characteristics. '94 Toland's response to Treasonable Conspiracy, The Second Part of the State Anatomy (1717), seemed to illustrate this notion perfectly. Toland gleefully exploited the chance to show up Defoe, highlighting that Defoe was in fact the author of both of these 95 strongly contrasting publications. The fact that he fell for his trap is more than likely to have given Defoe much mirth. The satiric tone of The Shortest Way had fooled

`those who were secretly so committed to extremist arguments that they could not see 96 the trick' and the current tract appears to have functioned in the same way.

The successful deception of Toland and the satisfaction this would have brought

Defoe also explains his rather indifferent response to Toland's attack. In A Farther

Argument Against Ennobling Foreigners (1717) Defoe, writing in the person of an outside commentator, denied his authorship of Treasonable Conspiracy and stated that even if he had been the author it amounted to no more than this; either that he had been wrong before, and was now better inform'd; or second, that he had contradicted himself, and wrote one time one thing, and one time another, a fault which Modesty should have taught Toland to have pass'd over in silence... 97

Given that Defoe's benevolent attitude towards foreigners had remained largely he unchanged and that explicitly highlighted this in the references to The True-Born 98 Englishman, one can safely dismiss the first statement. The second statement,

93 Colebrook, Irony, 19 94 Booth, Irony, 81 95 Abel Boyer was the first to accuse Defoe of the authorship of Treasonable Conspiracy and to highlight Defoe's inconsistency in his monthly journal, the Political State. See Furbank & Owens, Canonisation, 158 96 Novak, 'Defoe's "Shortest Way with the Dissenters"', 411 97 Daniel Defoe, A Farther Argument Against Ennobling Foreigners, in Answer to the two Parts of the State Anatomy: with a short Account of the Anatomizer (1717), 5-6 98 Statt, `Daniel Defoe and Immigration', 295

227 however, was exactly what Defoe had been doing and the fact that he openly acknowledged writing `one time one thing, and one time another' is a further indication that Treasonable Conspiracy had not been all it seemed. Utilising his ability to use a variety of convincing public voices, Defoe must have taken some pleasure in toying with Toland. Here he was, dropping one hint after another and yet Toland fell from one trap into the next. Even the manner of response to his alleged hypocrisy which Defoe proposed may be viewed as a further joke at Toland's expense. Given the partisan nature of early eighteenth-century journalism, no writer would have missed the opportunity to expose his adversaries' shortcomings and contradictions. Therefore, Defoe's suggestion that the obvious inconsistency between Treasonable Conspiracy and The True-Born Englishman was a `fault which modesty should have taught Tolandto have pass'd over in silence' only added insult to injury.

Not only can Defoe's response be construed to be an ironical charge which highlighted Toland's own inconsistencies, it can also be interpreted as ridiculing

Toland's status as a journalist, telling him that his `modest' ability to perceive a hoax like Defoe's should have prevented him from replying. Indeed, Defoe's motivation for using irony in Treasonable Conspiracy was most probably Toland's attempt at using this rhetorical device in the State Anatomy. As we have seen, Toland's remarks about George may be read as an example of the anti-monarchical stance evident in some of the anti-army writings of the radical Whigs. Defoe's own campaign in favour of a standing army had highlighted this aspect of the opposition campaign and he had king. 99 Treasonable Conspiracy vigorously asserted the rights of the In Defoe, it seems, turned the tables and countered Toland by once again satirising the Country Whigs' much-acclaimed nobility. Importantly, Defoe may also have decided to answer Toland in kind in order to demonstrate his superior ability as a polemicist. Toland had committed an obvious act of apostasy with regard to the issue of a standing army and vainly tried to conceal this fact by insisting that the professional military forces he had in mind were not an army. Tellingly, Defoe's irony explicitly inconsistency drew on the notion of - without the numerous references to The True- Born Englishman, the eventual ironical inversion of Defoe's account of the nobility

99 See Chapter 1,67-68

228 impossible would have been virtually - and by implication this reflected on Toland's pamphlet and political outlook. However, not only did Defoe's use of irony emphasise Toland's altered stance, it also highlighted his own consistency: if the reader recognised Defoe's ironic approach, he should also realise that little had changed in

Defoe's outlook since the first time the two men clashed in the 1690s. After all, his

attack was not actually aimed at foreigners but at England's nobility.

That Defoe did indeed attempt to belittle Toland's abilities as a writer is

strongly suggested by the rather revealing statement he made with regard to the had authorship of the StateAnatomy: the tract, Defoe insisted, not been written by Toland but by a set of conspirators; his opponent was merely the `editor or Compiler' 100 of the State-Anatomy. Yet, no evidence appears to exist which would suggest that

Defoe's contention is correct and, on closer inspection, it seems to be strongly Once coloured by Defoe's hostile feelings towards his old enemy. again, the standing importance here, Toland's army controversy assumes particular as the reference to function as an editor strongly hinted at his activities at this time. As part of his anti-

army campaign, Toland had edited Sidney's Discourses, a collection of Milton's had work and Harrington's Oceana. In addition, he produced an extensively

manipulated edition of Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs which, unlike the original

manuscript, overtly promoted country Whig values and was thus skilfully 1°' The appropriated for the purposes of the anti-army campaign. picture Defoe him however. According presented of Toland did not show as an accomplished editor,

to Treasonable Conspiracy, Toland was merely `an Instrument set on Work by a

Wicked Party of Men', a witless `Creature' who had been `imposed upon to commit Man Sense such gross Mistakes and assert such Falshoods, which no of could knowingly be guilty of. There was no evidence of any skill or intelligence in the

State Anatomy, Defoe claimed, and it was quite apparent that Toland lacked true

insight into the current state of the ministry: the `editor' knew as much about politics

as a shopkeeper knew about the watches he sold, which was `often no more of the just Shape, 102 working Part, than the and how to put every Thing in its Place'. In other

100 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 7 101 See Chapter 1,36 102 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 8,50

229 words, Toland was no master-editor but an unknowing, easily manipulated hack.

Defoe's comments about the authorship of the State Anatomy were clearly designed as a personal attack on his old adversary and it is suggestive of the nature of Defoe's pamphlet that one of its stated purposes was to `unmask this Writer effectually'. 1o3

Treasonable Conspiracy was thus as much about party politics as it was about John

Toland and it is conceivable, and indeed likely, that the stance which Defoe assumed with regard to the Whig split was shaped to a significant extent by his desire to expose his enemy's flaws.

Echoing his earlier pamphlets on the Whig schism, Defoe began Treasonable

Conspiracy with a general condemnation of the recent split in the ministry. He once again attacked the entire Whig party by asserting that the `Breaches among King

GEORGE's Friends' would inevitably `overthrow all that Felicity, that Peace, and those Halcyon Days, which the People of this Nation had Reason to hope for'. 104The friends' is here irony of labelling the Whigs `George's readily apparent - the party's divisions were clearly undermining the king's business. However, in contrast to the consistently non-committal stance of Defoe's previous two pamphlets, 'T'reasonable Conspiracy appeared to eventually declare its allegiance to the Walpole-Townshend 105 faction. It did so by launching an extremely xenophobic attack on Stanhope's plan to pass an act that was to create British peerages for George's foreign advisors. The

`Design of prostituting the illustrious Blood of our Nobility to Foreigners', the reader was told, was a `Horrid Conspiracy, against the Honour and Liberty' of the nation.

The men behind this plan were `selfish and designing' and merely wanted to `engross

Power, amass Wealth, and gratifie the unbound Avarice and Ambition of a few'. The proposal was, in fact, no less than treasonable and the present pamphlet was designed to `detect and expose' the sinister machinations of the 'Conspirators'. 1°6 In this context it is significant that Defoe describe the State-Anatomy as being of central importance for the conspirators. Toland's pamphlet had apparently been instrumental

103 Ibid, 50 104 Ibid, 4 los See Furbank & Owens, Canonisation, 159 106 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 5-6,9

230 107 in publicising and promoting the ministry's plan. As a result, any attack on the pamphlet and its author automatically reflected on the cause they supported. If the

State Anatomy, as Defoe claimed, was designed to neutralise the threat which `some loyal honest and Patriots, who yet remain in the Administration' (presumably a reference to Townshend and Walpole, since Townshend was not dismissed until two months after the publication of Treasonable Conspiracy) posed to the ministry's plans, his own pamphlet inevitably had to involve an attack on the supposed instigators behind the publication of the StateAnatomy, namely the Stanhope ministry. Defoe, it seems plausible to suggest, distanced himself from his paymasters because his rhetorical approach necessitated this move, not because he had finally decided to pledge his allegiance to the Townshend-Walpole opposition. 1°8 The in Defoe's Treasonable Conspiracy ambiguity emphasis on the partisan nature of - he did not name either the ministry or the opposition - supports this notion. However, confirmation of the validity of the above suggestion may be gained from a pamphlet Defoe published in late July 1717, The Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived, in the Present Divisions at Court.

The Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived constituted Defoe's most in-depth discussion of the Whig schism and it was in this pamphlet that Defoe most obviously sided with the court Whigs. Assuming the voice of a saddened Whig, Defoe related how early in Anne's reign the Whigs established a stable government, under which 109 `Things went on with wonderful Success'. However, `the craving Appetite of the ambitious' divided the Whigs into two factions which could be distinguished as

`Whigs out of Place, and Whigs in Place'. It soon became clear which of these two factions Defoe believed to be most deserving of condemnation: the opposition or old joined Whigs, having `High-Fliers, Jacobites, or Non jurors' in order to exert pressure on the court Whigs, `obtained the Character of Men of more Policy than

107 Furbank & Owens, Critical Bibliography, 169; Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 7,10 his 108 According to own account, Defoe passed into the service of Sunderland after Townshend's dismissal. See Defoe's letter to Charles DeLaFaye, 26 April 1718, in Healey, Letters, 452-53 109 Daniel Defoe, Old Whig andModern Whig Revived in the Present Divisions at Court (1717), 8

231 Principle'. ' 10As the pamphlet moved closer to the current breach among the Whigs,

Defoe's assessment of the `whigs out of place' became increasingly more scathing.

The assertion that Townshend and Walpole's opposition were entirely mercenary and

that their actions showed that `SELF lies at the Bottom' of their designs was repeated "' numerous times in the second half of the pamphlet. The `Men out of Places', Defoe

stated unequivocally, act without Regard to the Publick Good, of which before they claim'd to be esteemed Protectors and Patriots. Thus we see them clashing with the new Ministers, voting against them upon every Occasion, straitning, and as much as in them lies, threatening for and opposing the Publick Interest, even his Majesty's Affairs, whom a little before they were the greatest Sticklers, and the most faithful ' 12 Espousers of his Service against the World.

Over the course of the year 1717, then, Defoe's attitude changed from an ambiguous Whigs stance towards both the court and the opposition to an outright condemnation Walpole been of the actions of the opposition. Had Townshend and really the patriots they claimed to be, they should have `submitted their Judgements in some

Things... rather than to have distressed the Administration by their unreasonable

Strife'. The only outcome they could expect from their behaviour was, as the past had destruction Whig interest. It be shown, a Tory revival and the of the should noted, however, that, whilst he clearly held the opposition responsible for the most recent

split within the Whig party, Defoe did not describe the government as void of self- interest. The `common Good is but a common Whore', he concluded, `and serves Morrow Day every Purpose; every Party will to Day condemn, to acquit; to reproach, 113 to Morrow embrace the same Person'.

The rhetoric of The Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived, then, demonstrates

two things: firstly, Defoe's denunciation of the Walpole-Townshend opposition

indicates that the anti-ministerial stance in 'T'reasonable Conspiracy was most

probably determined by the fact that he was answering Toland. Secondly, that two decades after the standing army controversy, Defoe remained firmly attached to the

10 Ibid, 10-12,14 "' Ibid, 27; also 28,29-30,36,40 112 [bid, 34-35 113 Ibid, 22,39-40,47

232 court interest and opposed to the country opposition. His attack on the `Roman'

Whigs was at once aimed at to the anti-army cohort of the 1690s, who had assumed this title and of whom Toland was a well-known representative, and the current 114 Walpole-Townshend opposition. According to their professed principles of virtue and incorruptibility, these men should have been the greatest patriots of the nation but `Experience tells us, that EVEN THESE are not the Men': had the King George... the Administration into their ... no sooner put Hands, but these Men fell out again in the most violent Manner, about that old, ridiculous Question, that even divided the Disciples of Christ, viz. "' Who should be the greatest?

Defoe insisted that the old Whigs' constant talk of their principles was simply a smokescreen for their own avarice, which in turn was responsible for the damaging breach within the ministry. Moreover, what became clearly visible in the writings of old Whigs such as Toland was that the `Men out of Places act without Regard to the

Publick Good, of which before they claim'd to be esteemed Protectors and 116 Patriots'. The author of the StateAnatomy, Defoe insisted without any visible irony, was as `heterodox' in his politics as in his religion. One of the key concepts of the radical Whig campaign to which Toland had contributed was the Gothic balance, or the equilibrium between the three estates of king, Lords and Commons. This balance, the old Whigs had maintained, needed to be protected from corrupt courtiers '" and placemen who were prepared to sell their votes to the king and his ministry.

Yet, was Toland not openly encouraging the corruption of the Lords' independence by demanding the admission of the king's foreign courtiers? In addition, was this not

`against the Law it self which William III had wisely installed to protect the English constitution? Defoe similarly attacked Toland's `shameless Proposal' of a standing army. Did this man not remember the answer he and his fellow anti-army campaigners had given `in this Case to King William's Ministry'? Why should

114 Ibid, 31,42; that Defoe was indeed targeting the Walpole-Townshend opposition is by his shown allusion in the above context to the Duke of Argyll (33), who was dismissed from his various posts in June 1716 and subsequently began to intrigue against the king's ministers. See Speck, Stability and Strife, 189 15 Defoe, Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived, 31-32 116 Ibid, 34 117 See Chapter 1,40

233 standing forces be any less dangerous now then they were two decades ago? The illegal proposal advanced in the State-Anatomy finally showed this radical Whig to be a `Man, whose Life has been to act in a Mask' and a `Traitor to our Constitution'. 18

What the Whig schism had shown quite clearly was that the old Whigs were not in fact the highly principled defenders of the law and English liberties they claimed to be but self-interested `Men acting to Day one Part, to Morrow another'. 119The State-

Anatomy had only been one example of a professed country Whig acting against his principles to gain favour with the court. A `disinterested Patriot' Toland was certainly 120 not, and nor were Townshend or Walpole.

This chapter has demonstrated that if Treasonable Conspiracy is placed in the relevant contexts, the `complications and anomalies' referred to by Furbank and

Owens are perhaps not so great. To assert that a statement or an entire work is ironic is, of course, somewhat problematic, since irony is a figure of indeterminacy. The assumptions which the commentator has to make to arrive at the conclusion that the literal meaning of a statement must be rejected to allow a secondary meaning to emerge are inevitably strongly guided by the commentator's idea of the author's character and beliefs. This preconceived picture of the author naturally shapes the interpretation of a text and, in the worst case, can lead to a detection of irony which the author did not intend and the meaning of a text is inverted in order to fit the interpreter's idea of the author. In the case of Defoe, this danger of a fallacious reading is perhaps greater than with any author of the period. Yet, to not read Defoe's comments on the nobility and on foreigners in Treasonable Conspiracy as ironic, would be to ignore his undoubted talent as an ironist. Defoe himself, as this chapter has shown, certainly offered enough markers in his text to allow such a reading. What becomes apparent in the above analysis of Defoe's rhetorical strategy is that his stance in Treasonable Conspiracy was not quite as inconsistent as some of his biographers contemporaries and have suggested. The Defoe scholar might also feel a little more comfortable with the addition of the pamphlet to the Defoe canon.

"g Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 38,40,51,56-57 19 Defoe, Old Whig and Modern Whig Revived, 42 120 Ibid, 35

234 Conclusion

235 There is no doubt that Defoe could appear, to use the words of a contemporary ' observer, `One hour a Whig and the next hour a Tory'. Any study of Defoe's political rhetoric will inevitably find that his stance changed considerably during the two

decades or so he commented on matters of high politics. His public voice of the 1690s

was easily recognisable as that of a Court Whig. He took the side of William III in the

standing army controversy and repeatedly demonstrated his adherence to the

Whiggish notion of contractual government and the central Whig tenet of the right of

resistance in his pamphlets. What his writings of this period also show, however, is

that his early political rhetoric and polemical strategy may be described as unique

within the context of the controversy. Firstly, as is well known, his public voice was

not that of a radical Whig. Unlike some of the propagandists of the Country

opposition, Defoe did not believe that the king's powers should be reduced to an

absolute minimum in order to make his constitutional position merely titular.

However, a second important aspect of Defoe's writing has hitherto not been

sufficiently highlighted, namely that his polemical strategy also clearly differed from that of his fellow Court propagandists. While the other pro-army writers

predominantly focused on the argument of military necessity - France was still

regarded as too great a threat to be without an army - Defoe, it has been shown, offered a more substantial case for the retention of professional forces.

To be sure, Defoe too suggested that an army was needed as a deterrent to a have potential French invasion attempt, but he appears to realised that, in order to

counter anti-army propaganda effectively, he needed to engage with the opposition's forceful constitutional arguments. England, he maintained throughout the controversy, needed a strong monarch both to protect its international interests and to maintain the domestic power balance between king and parliament which was integral to the

stability of the constitution. To transfer virtually all political power to parliament, he

claimed, would not eradicate the possibility of tyrannical rule in England. The fact, opposite was, in true: an unbalanced `republican' government of this kind simply 2 meant `exchanging one Tyrant for Three hundred'. Political stability could only be

I The Weekly Journal; or, British Gazetteer (8 November 1718) 2 Defoe, An Argument, 73

236 guaranteed if the king was able to counterbalance parliament effectively, which, in turn, could only be achieved if he was allowed to retain the `sword in his hands', that is, to maintain a standing army. Parliament, Defoe claimed, was perfectly able to limit the king's power through its control of supply. `The Power of Raising Money', he concluded, `is wholly in the Parliament, as a Balance to the Power of Raising Men, 3 which is in the King'. It is this focus on the constitutional arguments advanced in the army debate which made Defoe's voice different from that of other pro-army writers.

In addition, his pro-army rhetoric demonstrated that his own constitutional ideas contained conservative elements which one might even call `royalist'.

Despite the fact that the standing army controversy officially ended in 1699 when parliament voted for a substantial reduction of William's forces, Defoe continued his attack on anti-army rhetoric. At the beginning of 1701, he published an extensive refutation of Country Whig constitutional theory in the shape of the verse satire The TrueBorn Englishman. The tract was designed to simultaneously establish

Defoe's reputation as a serious poet and to dismantle the most important element of

Country Whig ideology, the nobility. Radical Whig constitutional theory firmly rested on the notion of the `Gothic balance', which offered a perfect equilibrium between the three governmental estates of king, Lords and Commons. Importantly, this Gothic government was, in the main, protected by the `Barons', the ancient equivalent of the modern nobility. Due to their natural incorruptibility, the Country Whigs claimed, they had the function of curbing any transgressive behaviour of the king or the

Commons. Morally superior to the two other governmental estates, the nobility represented the bulwark of English liberties. In True-Born Englishman, it has been shown, Defoe systematically subverted and dismantled this cornerstone of Country

Whig political thought. In his version of ancient British history, the Barons were not superior but became `Beggars Bastards' 'Rascals 4 morally and and ... enrich'd'. Indeed, Defoe argued that it was the nobility, not the king or Commons, who established a tyrannical rule. What becomes apparent is that Defoe rejected the notion of the governmental triad. His balanced constitution was achieved through the

3 Ibid, 76 4 Defoe, True-Born Englishman, 208

237 juxtaposition king's of the power with that of the Commons. The nobility occupied only a marginal position in Defoe's version of the English constitution. The True- Englishman Born thus offered the first and most extensive attack on Country Whig historiography and constitutional theory of the early eighteenth century. The standing army controversy was a purely political debate. Whether or not one advocated the retention of a significant standing army was essentially determined by the individual's political principles and their idea of the English constitution. In contrast, the occasional conformity controversy appeared to be a different matter; this debate ostensibly focused on the religious conduct of the individual. High Anglicans believe did, of course, that religion and politics could not be divorced from one if individual another: an refused to conform to the national church, s/he also stood outside the country's political establishment and legal structure. The practice of occasional conformity, they asserted, demonstrated beyond doubt that the Dissenters, like their Roundhead ancestors, were irreligious regicides, who sought political power in order to turn the kingdom into a republic. In contrast to the extreme Anglicans,

Defoe viewed the issue of occasional conformity as a purely theological problem. If issue had his writings on the army marked him as a court Whig, his public voice at the beginning of the debate surrounding occasional conformity was that of an `apolitical'

Dissenter. To Defoe, the Dissenters' taking of annual communion in an Anglican church represented a serious threat to the integrity of religious nonconformity. It undermined the very grounds on which the Dissenters had separated from the Church and as such the practice could potentially prove the end of Dissent. Defoe's condemnation of occasional conformists was remarkable close to the rhetoric of the High-Churchmen.

However, Defoe after was imprisoned and pilloried for publishing the seditious The Shortest Way libel with the Dissenters, his voice changed noticeably and almost The instantly. episode seemed to have clarified to him that the extreme Anglicans far represented a greater threat to nonconformity than the occasional conformists ever Moreover, High-Churchmen could. were advocating a regime which was clearly in opposition to the much-coveted `Revolution Principle'. From this point onwards, debate Defoe considered the to be about fundamental political and constitutional

238 questions. He began a campaign which was designed to re-assert the liberties and rights of the individual and he now defended the occasional conformists. He consistently refuted the High-Church accusation that nonconformity represented a political threat and at every turn he attempted to counter High-Church demands for an abolishment of liberty of conscience and the eradication of Dissent. Moreover, Defoe once again decided to refute his opponents' extremist ideas in the elevated form of a verse satire. Jure Divino, it has been shown, may be viewed as the culmination of Defoe's effort to provide a comprehensive system which showed the legality of religious dissent. It might also be remarked that Defoe's public voice at this point was one of popular Whiggery. His rhetorical focus had necessarily changed from the rights of the king to the rights of the individual.

When Defoe wrote volume one of The Family Instructor in 1714, he had been a political propagandist for almost two decades. His work as a government writer had required Defoe to perform some high-profile changes of stance and consequently earned him the reputation of being an unprincipled hack and political Proteus. Defoe, however, had never abandoned his belief in the traditional Whig principles of contractual government and the Protestant succession. When Jacobitism experienced a dangerous resurgence during the succession crisis of 1714, he published a series of ironic pamphlets which were designed to highlight the dangers of a restoration of James Edward Stuart. The pamphlets failed to have their desired effect and he was, in fact, prosecuted for, and later convicted of, the production of libellous materials. With his reputation at an absolute low point and the nation experiencing a series of

Jacobite-inspired, anti-Hanoverian riots, Defoe produced a public voice which was unlike any of his previous ones. In order to aid the restoration of national peace and unity, he produced a conduct book in The Family Instructor which relentlessly preached the need for an obedience to higher powers. In the process, Defoe largely ignored the previously much coveted right of resistance (although it is never rejected), while he actively promotes strict, at times autocratic, paternal government. Adjusting his rhetoric to the demands of the historical moment, Defoe's voice was now, in some respects, remarkably close to that of earlier paternalist writings. Moreover, while his verse satires were predominantly aimed at an upper class readership and intended to

239 in make an impact the public sphere of political debate, The Family Instructor was a

public voice which intruded into the private sphere. Defoe's choice of literary form

was an important part of his polemical strategy, as it targeted directly the very people

who could be seen rioting in the streets of the major cities of Britain, craftsmen and tradesmen and their families and apprentices. In this sense, Defoe's The Family

Instructor was not merely a guide to the private practice of family prayer, but

represented a public political act.

One of the most puzzling of Defoe's voices is that of Treasonable Conspiracy,

which came as a response to Toland's State Anatomy. The pamphlet appeared to

renege on almost every one of Defoe's earlier ideas. The tract celebrates the moral

superiority and genealogical purity of the nobility, dismissed foreigner as being of

`spurious blood', and described standing armies as one of the greatest threats to 5 English liberties. At the same time, Defoe displayed an undiminished veneration for

William III and expressed largely the same sentiments regarding the nature of Dissent

as he had done over a decade earlier. A literal reading of the tract certainly suggests that Defoe had become an apostate to some of his fundamental beliefs. Treasonable

Conspiracy does, however, contains a number of markers which indicate that some

section of the pamphlet should be regarded as ironic in nature. If understood in this way, what becomes apparent is that the tract represented a personal attack on Defoe's old country Whig adversary Toland. In this context, Defoe's ironic apostasy served to draw attention to his opponent's inconsistencies, while, through the ironic inversion, reaffirming some of his own beliefs. If read literally, Defoe's voice in Treasonable

Conspiracy is very different from the country Whig voice of the State-Anatomy, to the extent where Defoe's own Whig credential become questionable. If, however, the ironic content of the pamphlet is taken into consideration, one of Defoe's final public high voices on matters of politics returns to the mould of his voice of the 1690s. Two his first decades after attack on the country opposition, Defoe's rhetoric still marked him out as a court supporter.

focuses Even a study which on a selection of Defoe's public voices clearly

demonstrates that his polemical strategy was largely determined by an ad hominem

5 Defoe, Treasonable Conspiracy, 13

240 His approach. political rhetoric was shaped and re-shaped by the general re- adjustments evident in political and religious discourses after the Glorious fact Revolution. The that political positions were not fixed was necessarily reflected In in Defoe's own writing. this sense, some of Defoe's inconsistencies are simply a

sign of the times. However, there were also occasions when Defoe sacrificed a previously held position in order to achieve a specific polemical goal. It is at these points that Defoe's nature as an occasional writer becomes most apparent. To Defoe, it was the end product which was most important, not the means by which it was achieved. Even if, in order to support the political stability of the nation, he was required to renege on an earlier public voice, Defoe was always prepared to do so to safeguard what he considered to be in the interest of the public good.

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Articles

Abbott, S. `Clerical responsesto the Jacobiterebellion, ' Historical Research 76: 193 (2003), 332-346

Alsop, J.D. `Defoe and his Whig Paymasters', Notes and Queries 226 (June 1981), 225-226

Austin, M. `Saul and the Social Contract: Constructions of I Samuel 8- 11 in Cowley's Davideis and Defoe's Jure Divino', Papers on Language and Literature 32 (1996), 410-436

Backscheider, P.R. `Defoe's Prodigal Sons and The Family Instructor', Studies in the Literary Imagination 15:2 (1982), 3-18

Backscheider, P.R. `The Verse Essay, John Locke, and Defoe's Jure Divino', Journal of English Literary History 55 (1988), 99-124 Bennett, G. V. `English Jacobitism, 1710-1715: Myth and Reality', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Fifth Series, 32 (1982), 137-151

Black, J. `Parliament and the political and diplomatic crisis of 1717- 18', Parliamentary History 3 (1984), 77-101

Black, J. `An Underrated Journalist: Nathaniel Mist and the Opposition Press during the Whig Ascendency', British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies 10: 1 (Spring 1987), 27-41

Bradley, J.E. `Nonconformity and the Electorate in Eighteenth-Century England', Parliamentary History 6: 2 (1987), 236-261

Clark, J.C. D. `A General Theory of Party, Opposition and Government, 1688-1832', Historical Journal 23: 2 (1980), 295-325

253 DeLuna, D. N. "`Modern Panegyrick" and Defoe's "Dunciad"', Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 35: 3 (Summer 1995), 419- 435 D. N. DeLuna, `Jure Divino: Defoe's "whole Volume in Folio, by Way of Answer to, and Confutation of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion"', Philological Quarterly 75 (1996), 43-66 Dickinson, H. T. `The October Club', Huntington Library Quarterly XXXII1 (1969-70), 155-173

Dickinson, H. T. `The Eighteenth-Century Debate on the "Glorious Revolution"', History 61 (1976), 28-45

Downie, J.A. `Ben Overton: An Alternative Author of A Dialogue betwixt Whig and Tory', Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 70 (1976), 263-271

Downie, J.A. `Mr. Review and his Scribbling Friends: Defoe and the Critics, 1705-1706', Huntington Library Quarterly 41: 4 (1978), 345-366

Downie, J.A. 'Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters: Irony, Intention and Reader-Response,' Prose Studies 9 (1986), 120-139 Downie, J.A `Daniel Defoe: King William's Pamphleteer?, ' Eighteenth Century Life 12:3 (1988), 105-117

Downie, J.A. `Stating Facts Right About Defoe's Review', Prose Studies 16 (1993), 8-22

Downie, J.A. 'Defoe's Early Writings', Review of English Studies 46 (1995), 225-230 C. Ewing, D. `The First Printing of Defoe's Family Instructor', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 65 (1971), 269-272 Fisher, C. `Public Order, Popular Disorder. Defoe and "The Clamours of the People"', Halcyon 17 (1995), 205-222

Flaningam, J. `The Occasional Conformity Controversy: Ideology and Party Politics, 1697-1711', Journal of British Studies 17 (1977), 38-62

Fletcher, E. G. `Defoe on Milton', Modern Language Notes 50: 1 (1935), 31-32

Furbank, P.N. & `Defoe and the "Improvisatory" Sentence', English Studies Owens, W. R. 67: 2 (1986), 157-166

Furbank P.N. & `Defoe and the Dutch Alliance: Some Attributions Owens W. R. Examined', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 9: 2 (1986), 169-182 Furbank P.N. & `Dangerous Relations', The Sciblerians and the Kit Kais 23 Owens W. R. (1991), 242-244

Furbank, P. N. & `The 1.c st Prnnertv Office Some Defoe Attrihntinns

254 Owens, W. R. Reconsidered', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 86: 3 (1992), 245-267 P.N. & Furbank, `Defoe, Trent, and the "Defection", Review of English Owens, W. R. Studies 44: 3 (1993), 70-76

Furbank, P.N. & `Defoe and "Sir Andrew Politick"', British Journal for Owens, W. R. Eighteenth-Century Studies 17: 1 (Spring 1994), 27-39

Furbank, P.N. & `On the Attribution of Periodicals and Newspapers to Owens, W. R. Daniel Defoe', Publishing History 40 (1996), 83-98

Furbank, P.N. & `The Defoe that never was. A Tale of De-Attribution', Owens, W. R. American Scholar 66: 2 (1997), 276-284

Furbank, P.N. & `The Myth of Defoe as "Applebee's Man"', Review of Owens, W. R. English Studies 48 (1997), 198-204

Furbank, P.N. & `Defoe and the Sham Flying Post', Publishing History 43 Owens, W. R. (1998), 5-15

Furbank, P.N. & `Defoe, the De la Faye letters and Mercurius Politicus', Owens, W. R. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 23: 1 (Spring 2000), 13-19

Furbank, P.N. & `Defoe and King William: A Sceptical Enquiry', Review of Owens, W. R. English Studies 52: 206 (2001), 227-232

Furbank, P.N. & `Stylometry and the Defoe canon', Papers of the Owens, W. R. Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 96: 3 (September 2002), 463-465

Gibbs, G. C. `Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Age of Stanhope and Walpole', English Historical Review 77 (1962), 18-37

Gregg, E. `Was Queen Anne a Jacobite? ', History 57 (1972), 358-375 Hill, B. W. `Executive Monarchy and the Challenge of Parties, 1689- 1832: Two Concepts of Government and Two Historiographical Interpretations', Historical Journal 13:3, (1970), 379-401

Holmes, G.S. & `The Fall of Harley in 1708 Reconsidered',English Speck, W. A. Historical Review LXXX (1965), 673-698

Hyland, P.B. `Liberty and Libel: Governmentand the Pressduring the Succession Crisis in Britain, 1712-1716', English Historical Review 101 (1986), 863-888

Ivanyi, B. G. `Defoe's Prelude to the Family Instructor', Times Literary Supplement (7 April 1966), 312

Kelly, J. `The Worcester Affair', The Review of English Studies, New Series 51: 201 (2000), 1-23 H. L. Koonce, `Moll's Muddle: Defoe's use of Irony in "Moll Flanders"', English Literary History 30 (1963), 377-394

255 Kropf, C.R. `Libel and Satire in the Eighteenth Century', Eighteenth Century Studies 8 (1974), 153-168

Lease, O. C. `The Septennial Act of 1716', Journal of Modern History 22 (1950), 42-47

McInnes, A. `The Political Ideas of Robert Harley', History L (1965), 309-322

Mc Kay, D. `The Struggle for Control of George I's Northern Policy, 1718-19', Journal of Modern History 45 (1973), 367-386

Miller, E. A. `Some Arguments used by the English Pamphleteers, 1697- 1700, Concerning a Standing Army', Journal of Modern History 18:4 (1946), 3 06-313

Mischler, G. `English Political Sermons 1714-1742: A Case Study in the Theory of the "Divine Right of Governours" and the Ideology of Order', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (2001), 33-61

Moore, JR. `Daniel Defoe: King William's Pamphleteer and Intelligence Agent', Huntington Library Quarterly 34: 3 (1971), 251-260

Novak, M. E. 'Defoe's "Shortest Way with the Dissenters": Hoax, Parody, Paradox, Fiction, Irony, and Satire', Modern Language Quarterly 27 (1966), 402-417

Novak, M. E. `A Whiff of Scandal in the Life of Daniel Defoe', Huntington Library Quarterly 34 (1970-1), 35-42

Novak, M. E. `The Defoe Canon: Attribution and De-Attribution', Huntington Library Quarterly 59: 1 (1996), 83-104

Novak, M. E. `Defoe and the Art of War', Philological Quarterly 75 (1996), 197-213

Oates, J.D. `Jacobitism and Popular Disturbances in Northern England, 1714-1719', Northern History 41: 1 (2004), 111-128

Peterson, S. `Defoe and Westminster, 1696-1706', Eighteenth Century Studies 12:3 (1979), 306-338

Pincus, S. "'Coffee Politicians Does Create": Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture', Journal of Modern History 67: 4 (1995), 807-834

Richetti, J. `The Family, Sex, and Marriage in Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana', Studies in the Literary Imagination 15:2 (1982), 19-35

Rogers, N. `Popular Protest in Early Hanoverian London', Past & Present 79 (1978), 70-100

Rothman, IN. `Defoe Census of The Family Instructor and The Political Hi. ctorv of the Devil'. Notes and Queries 221 (19761.486-

256 492

Rothman, IN. 'Defoe's The Family Instructor: A Response to the Schism Act', Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 74 (1980), 201-220

Rothman, IN. 'Defoe's Family Instructor in Glasgow: Dissent and the Schism Act', Notes and Queries 31 (September 1984), 385- 387

Rothman, I. N. `Defoe De-Attributions Scrutinized under Hargevik Criteria: Applying Stylometrics to the Canon', Papers of the Bibliographical Society ofAmerica 94: 3 (2000), 375- 398

Schonhorn, M. `Defoe and the Limits of Jacobite Rhetoric', English Literary History 64 (1997), 871-886

Schwoerer, L. G. `The Literature of the Standing Army Controversy, 1697- 1699', Huntington Library Quarterly 18 (1965), 187-212

Shanley, M. L. `Marriage Contract and Social Contract in Seventeenth Century English Political Thought', Western Political Quarterly 32 (1979), 79-91

Speck, W. A. `The General Election of 1715', English Historical Review 90 (1975), 507-522

Springborg, P. `Mary Astell (1666-1731), Critic of Locke', American Political Science Review 89 (1995), 621-633

Starkie, A. `William Law and Cambridge Jacobitism, 1713-16, ' Historical Research 75: 190 (November 2002), 448-467

Statt, D. `Daniel Defoe and Immigration', Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (1991), 293-313

Straka, G. `The Final Phase of Divine Right Theory in England, 1688- 1702, ' English Historical Review 77 (1962), 638-658

Walker, R. B. `The Newspaper Press in the Reign of William III', Historical Journal 17:4 (1974), 691-709

Worden, B. `Whig history and Puritan Politics: The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow revisited, ' Historical Research 75: 188 (2002), 209-237

Zaller, R. `Guilt by Association: The Atheist Cabal and the Rise of the Public Sphere in Augustan England', Albion 34: 3 (2002), 391-421

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